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by RedKnite
Summary: Amy Dallon from shortly after Golden Morning is transported to the past.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I stood on a street corner, terrified. A discarded newspaper lay on the ground next to me. It was dated 2011. Normally an old newspaper wouldn't scare me, but considering this one was brand new and everything I could see was radically different, I was alarmed. My breathing sped up and I looked around hoping to see someone I recognized, never mind that I had done the same minutes before.

I had to face the facts: I was alone. Alone and four years in the past. I didn't have my dad or anyone else from the Birdcage. I didn't even have New Wave. They were with my other self, assuming she hadn't popped out of existence or something.

I hadn't felt this alone since I had first gone to the Birdcage. That had turned out okay by certain definitions. So maybe this would too? What a joke. How could this turn out well? I was in the past. There was no chance that anyone would believe me if I was crazy enough to tell anyone. I would be called a stranger and sent back to the Birdcage. I angrily brushed away the tears that had begun to trail their way down my cheeks.

Maybe I should do that. Get myself sent back to the Birdcage so I couldn't hurt anyone and I could see my dad again? No, that was a shitty plan. There were few enough people I cared about hurting and I had a better handle on my powers now than when I disfigured Victoria.

I tried to calm down. I stared out at the street and contemplated how nice it looked. It was a shithole, but it was Brockton Bay before Leviathan or The Nine or Scion, so in comparison it was beautiful and full of hope. Yes, the dilapidated buildings and two drug dealers I could see on either corner positively _reeked_ of hope. Apparently being cynical was a good coping strategy. I felt better already.

I went back to redesigning my entire life. What did I even want to do? The despair threatened to crush me, but I tried to at least come up with some options. Going back to New Wave was familiar, but Carol would be just as awful as she had always been. Vicky, on the other hand, wouldn't hate me.

I could stand to be away from her now so maybe we could have a more healthy relationship? Be an independent and see Victoria whenever we encountered each other with the possibility of becoming friends?

That sounded reasonable or at least plausible. I would need a disguise for my civilian identity so that no one would recognize me as Amy Dallon.

To get a disguise I needed income. I had $50 on me, but that wasn't enough to get a good disguise and certainly not enough to eat for very long. Okay, what were my options? I could get a job like a normal person, be a vigilante and live off money from criminals, be a villain, or heal people for money.

I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of being a villain. Spending time with dad definitely made me more morally flexible and I won't recoil at the idea of being a criminal the way I would before. I'm still a little cautious, especially considering that if it ever gets out that I'm a potential S-class threat I do not want to be on the wrong side of the law. Even aside from all that it would burn bridges with Victoria if she ever found out so that's nixed.

Being a vigilante sounds nice, but is probably way too dangerous without a team. I would still have all the gang's animosity, but I would also have additional restrictions and less income. If I ever stepped over the line I would be forced into joining an existing group pretty quick.

I could be a rogue? A healer? Similar to how I acted as Panacea, but with actually being paid and the hospital not being as helpful or controlling. There would definitely be enough people for me to heal. I remembered all the people I left untreated when I went home for the day when I was Panacea. I could also do brains now. That would be what I specialized in: psych ward patients and whoever would pay the most to get to the front of the line. I could also do elective procedures! Nonessential things that people still wanted like cosmetic surgery or stronger bones. To get people to trust that I was a real healer and not trying to master people or something I would need to talk to the Protectorate and get them to say I could actually heal people. To do that I needed a costume. Those were some good easy first goals.

I walked up to the PRT's front desk, with my newly straightened and dyed green hair.

"Hello I'm Aceso and I would like to be verified as a healer." My mask was an expanded version of a domino mask made from thin wood with little branches growing up over my head. I had made it out of some foliage in the woods. Combined with my hair, I looked like a tree. It was the best I could do on short notice. It did imply I worked more with plants than flesh, which was a good impression to give since I was trying to distinguish myself from Panacea. Though maybe naming myself after a goddess of healing wasn't a great way to distance myself from her.

The man sitting behind the desk smiled at me and replied "Okay Aceso, I'll call someone to get you started on the verification process. You can take a seat."

"Thank you."

I turned around and took a seat in one of the blue cloth chairs that wasn't too close to anyone else. After a couple minutes a man came out of the door next to the reception desk and called for me.

I stood and followed him through the hall into what looked like his office. It was small. There were folders strewn across his desk. I saw something about asians being arrested, which was probably less racist than it sounded considering there was a gang that was explicitly "Azn".

"Hello Aceso, I'm Deputy Director Renick." He reached out his hand, which I shook. "Now to start, what are your powers?" he said.

"I manipulate biology, mostly plants, but I can kind of nudge animal, including human, physiology to help people. I can accelerate healing, correct hormonal imbalances and produce different proteins. This means I can't fix broken bones or regrow limbs, but I can fix pretty much any sickness if I get to see them a couple times. Even cancer. I can also cure most mental illnesses." I obviously could heal broken bones, but I would leave that to Panacea.

"Wow, that's quite impressive, but I'm sure you understand we'll need some kind of proof."

"Of course. That's why I'm here," I agreed obligingly.

"I can go get a plant for you to use your power on, but to demonstrate your ability to heal humans you'll need an appointment with Brockton Bay General Hospital. I'll be back in a second with a fern or something and then we can set up a second appointment, okay?"

"That sounds great."

"Okay I'll be right back." He stepped out, leaving me to my thoughts.

This was going well so far, better even than when I had had to do it as Panacea. The most problematic thing was giving a description of my powers that I would be comfortable using in the future. I couldn't just regrow someone's arm in front of the PRT if I needed to without being caught lying, but those kinds of situations were relatively rare.

The door opened and Renick stepped in carrying a small potted plant with white spots on its leaves. He set it on the table in front of me and gestured.

"So I just need to see you make a visible change to the plant. Whenever you're ready."

I reached out and put my hand on one of the leaves and studied its biology. It looked moderately poisonous, but that wasn't really important. I directed its leaves to start producing carotenoids as pigment and decomposing chlorophyll. It started darkening a little after a second, quickly blooming into bright orange.

I looked at Renick. He was staring at the plant looking mildly surprised.

"How was that?" I asked.

"Good. Now let's set up that appointment at the hospital."

"That plant is going to die if I don't change it back, by the way."

Meeting my other self was very weird. I tried not to let it show, but I couldn't get over how awful she looked. She had bags under her eyes and her demeanor was mostly one of irritation, but she also looked like she was about to pass out. I don't think I actually had when I went to the hospital, but I mentally prepared myself to catch her if she actually did fall anyway. It would really suck if she brained herself on a bed or something.

Did I really look like that before?

At least I knew that she hadn't ceased to exist on my arrival. That would have been hard to explain.

"Panacea is going to monitor Miss Thompson here to see how you deal with the patient's illness. You just need to use you power when Panacea is ready," a nurse at the hospital told me. Panacea walked forward and put a hand on the patient's arm.

"Go ahead," urged my twin.

I reached out, putting my hand on her shoulder and started looking at what was wrong. She had the flu: not a difficult problem to fix. I started telling the viruses in her body to stop replicating. I also got infected cells to start apoptosis to stop any more viruses from getting made, decreased production of histamine to reduce her symptoms, and I lowered her body temperature threshold in the hypothalamus. This was more subtle than I usually did things, but with Panacea watching I couldn't just order all the viruses to go get eaten by a macrophage because she would be pretty interested that a new parahuman used exactly the same technique as her. It would work just as well, just leave her tired and with a slightly runny nose.

"Huh. I guess that works," mused Panacea, "You'll still be tired and might have a runny nose, but you're… I'm not quite sure if I'd call this cured yet because the virus is still there, but you'll be fine. It'll be gone in a day at most."

"Thank you so much, dear," miss Thompson thanked me. I smiled and nodded then turned to the nurse.

"So do I need to prove I can cure all sorts of different illnesses or is this it?"

"That's mostly up to Panacea as she's the one verifying your powers."

"If you can just tell me how you'd solve different problems I can just ask you a few questions," Panacea sighed, "but if your powers just do things without your input then I'll need to see it in action a few more times."

"I know what I'm doing with my powers," I replied "I stopped the viruses reproduction then lessened her immune system's response to clear up the symptoms." That might have come out a little more hostile than it should have. I had worked plenty hard to earn that PhD. My powers helped, but I worked too damnit! I had to study for like a week straight to get all that terminology down.

"Ah, good. Then we can just have an interview like thing in the break room I guess."

I started down the hall to the break room. Then I stopped. I shouldn't know where it is, right?

"I don't know where I'm going," I said as I turned to her. She gave me a little grin and said "You were right. It's that way," and she took the lead. Once we were there, she gave me a quiz on how I would solve different problems.

After I had answered all of her questions we relaxed a bit and she confessed, "I'm glad you're here, it should lessen the number of people I can't get to."

"You're welcome, especially since I'm going to be getting all the rich entitled assholes," I told her. She looked at me, raising an eyebrow.

"Why is that?"

"Because I'm a rogue," I said. She looked at me in confusion for a second before her eyes widened and she almost glared at me.

"And you can get paid because you're over eighteen."

"Yep." I agree. I remember being pretty fed up with the child protection laws Youth Guard had gotten passed that didn't let underaged parahumans work. They prevented kids from being taken advantage of which was great, but kind of screwed people like me who ended up working all the time for free.

"You're so lucky you don't have to deal with that shit. I still have to wait three years before I can get paid," Panacea complained.

"I might have a bit more experience than you think," I replied.

She eyed me for a second before apparently deciding she wasn't interested and asked "So do you have a plan for the people who can't afford you or are they just shit out of luck?"

"I'll charge on a case by case basis. Rich people pay me a ton; poor people pay little. I can make especially big price hikes for elective stuff," I answered.

"Elective stuff?"

"Cosmetic surgery, stronger bones, that kinda thing," I elaborate. I actually do plan on becoming a hero, just with extra income. To get that I'm gonna play a little hard to get. The Protectorate will certainly cave to letting me sell my services to whoever, in exchange for recruiting me, once I have a chance to show off a little. Not in a fight, that's still too dangerous without a team. I would just give some people augmentations. I did pick up a few things from Riley, after she became a hero after all.

"Ahh…" What? Did that make her uncomfortable around me or something? It could evoke images of Bonesaw or Nilbog, but I don't think I would have been this agitated around someone instantly like this. It's not like I suggested she do it… Oh. She's jealous. Then beating herself up over wanting to do more with her powers. I'd like to encourage her, but it isn't like her worries are completely unfounded. Either the ones about doing something horrible or Carol getting pissed.

If Amy branched out into doing whatever her (our?) passenger considered interesting she would probably be less likely to have a meltdown like I did, but I can't really tell her that. Not directly at least. I might be able to help her with a more long term approach. Maybe get her to work more on animals?

"Do you want to go out to get coffee with me sometime?" I asked. Establishing a friendship with her would let me try and help her mental state and give me a way to interact with Vicky again. This might be a little manipulative, but I don't really care.

"Uhh…" she stammered, eyes widening and starting to blush. Shit! She thinks I just asked her out!

"Just as friends! Not like a date or anything!"

"Sorry, I don't drink coffee. I'll go tell them you can heal people. Bye," she squealed and practically ran away.

Damn.

I walked back to the woods where I had made my mask. That was where I had slept the night before. There was a large bump at the bottom of the trunk with a space big enough to sleep inside of. I probably would need to sleep here another night while the PRT talked with Panacea and got my certificate ready.

I might as well make my little home nicer if I had to stay here. I made the tree spread out towards nearby trees a couple feet above head height, taking material from the branches and higher parts of the tree. When it reached one of the other trees I walked over to it and made the two trees combine to create one larger organism if only on a technical level so that I could manipulate both without having to touch them both if I needed to change something. I repeated this process several times until I had four trees connected by a living roof. I then made walls and grew the roots into a kind of floor.

There I had made a nice little one room house I just needed to furnish. I made a mattress out of something like phloem so that it was firm, but not hard. I could make a door, but I realized if I don't make one random people can't just walk in. I'll just make one part require less work to open than others and make that into an opening whenever I want to go in or out. I also make some lights, small regions on the ceiling that glow blue with bioluminescence.

Maybe I could make something to eat too. I turned some of the surrounding wall into something like an apple. I put some cellulose, sugars and minerals into it and finally put a nice red skin on it.

I took a bite and gagged. No, that was disgusting, sour, bitter and gross. Growing my own food might take some work. For now I'd just have to spend some of the little money I had left.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Hopefully I was about to get my parahuman medical license. That would allow me to act as a doctor in many respects though the specifics were decided on a case by case basis. Mine would probably allow me allow me to make diagnoses and administer treatments, but not write prescriptions.

"Hello I'm here to get my parahuman medical license." The receptionist told me to wait in the lobby. A minute or so later Renick came out and called me back to his office.

"Good morning Aceso. Panacea confirmed that you can heal people effectively and that means all you need to do is sign that you will not use your powers to harm people while you claim to be healing them." He handed me a packet with a line at the bottom for me to sign. As much as I hated her, living with Carol had taught me to read these things. It said what the deputy director claimed with a few more things that I was fine with, like not using my powers to unmask people, so I signed.

"Thank you," Renick said, collecting the papers, "I'll go get your license." He left to get a nice piece of paper stating that "The Parahuman Response Team East North East certifies that Aceso possesses the qualifications prescribed by law and is hereby granted a license as a parahuman physician and surgeon."

I thanked him then looked at the piece of paper and smiled. This would be very useful.

"You're welcome. Now that you are a licensed physician were you thinking about healing people at Brockton General Hospital?"

"Yes, among other places. I don't see a reason to only work at one place."

"Of course. I thought you should know that the PRT and Protectorate could help immensely in managing patients and keeping anyone who might want to harm you from doing so." Ahh, the recruitment pitch. I was hoping I would have a bit more time before I had to deal with this, but they would want to get to me early.

"I suppose that does sound useful, but I was planning on selling my healing and I'm not sure the protectorate would be amenable to that."

"If you did join the protectorate you would certainly be paid a sizeable salary."

"I would prefer to be able to control my business."

"I understand, but I don't think the local villains would allow you to do that, especially a powerful healer such as yourself."

"Well if I do happen to have issues, I'll be sure to join the Protectorate _immediately_," I drawled.

I looked around at my tree house. Not that it was in a tree. Well actually it was in a tree. It just wasn't _up_ in a tree. I had made a big box out of living wood around my original tree, okay?

This was actually pretty cool. I had been planning to move into an apartment when I could afford to, but this was a good way to show off my powers to customers and I could change it whenever I wanted.

First, to make my bed a bed and not just a mattress on the ground. I made sure to put little swirly things on the bed posts so it looked nice. I should also add some sort of temperature control, but I wasn't really sure what I needed. It wasn't too hot or too cold last night so I would cross that bridge when I came to it.

Actually, wait, there was definitely an immediate problem: oxygen. There were no windows or openings in my little room so there was no way for new oxygen to get in. It hadn't been a problem yet because it was a decent sized room and I had only been in here for 10 or so hours, but if I was going to stay here for any length of time I needed a way to get more oxygen in here. I could just make a window, but I didn't want animals or bugs to come in here, especially since Skitter was still around.

I could try to make the trees photosynthesize the carbon dioxide into oxygen, but taking the CO2 from inside the room and the sunlight from outside would be very difficult. It would also take way too long; I would consume oxygen far faster than a few trees could produce it.

A filter to let oxygen in and CO2 out without letting anything else in would be good. I made millions of microscopic holes in the roof to let air pass through, but ones that were too small for even water to get through.

Was air flowing? I had the cells on the walls of the air holes grow cillia to try and feel the passage of air and they did seem to be feeling a breeze.

Next was a toilet. I didn't want to have to hike back to civilization to go to the bathroom without squatting in the woods. I didn't have the infrastructure to make plumbing at the moment so I can just make a septic tank. I created a small alcove under ground and made sure it was sealed so it wouldn't leak into the ground water. I made tubes from one corner of my little room down to the alcove. I would need to make a bathroom later since I didn't really want to be able to see the toilet all the time. I took some of the bacteria in the air that tend to decompose feces and put them on the inside of the tube. I made the tree start producing some sap with compounds the bacteria would eat and sent it down the tube.

I also put some scent gland things I remember seeing in orchids around there too so it wouldn't smell as bad when I started using it. I also made a toilet over the tube so there wasn't just a random hole in the ground in my house.

Okay, my house was less bad now so I should probably work on figuring out how I would advertise my business. What should I do? I could stand outside the hospital and tell people I could heal them. No, that was really dumb and probably illegal.

I could introduce myself on PHO and try and get people to come get healed by me. That sounded like it could work. I could also talk to Faultline's Crew and get business from them.

Now to walk two miles to the library. Yay.

My PHO introduction had gone as well as could be expected.

I had gotten a "verified healer" tag after showing the mods my license and people seemed excited that a new healer existed though some people were pessimistic assholes and thought the empire was going to strongarm me into joining. It's hard to fault them since it's happened before.

At least seven people did say on my thread they were going to come to Brockton Bay because I would increase their chances of getting healed. I would have plenty of clients if I had seven out of city customers within five minutes of announcing my business.

Since the only way people had of getting in contact with me was PHO I would need to check it fairly regularly and get a better system as soon as I could afford a phone. I would check my messages in a couple hours and see if anyone was ready for me to heal them today. I figured I would at least have a few people to choose from.

First, I wanted to develop ties here. Someone I could call if I got into trouble. The Protectorate was good, but was incentivised to get me to join. New Wave was also an option, but as far as they were concerned they didn't know me. Except Panacea and she thought I had hit on her. I would need to clear that up with her pretty soon, but that didn't keep me safe in the short term.

The best option I saw was Faultline's Crew. They were reliable, weren't likely to pressgang me, from what I knew of them, and I was something they almost certainly wanted. Who didn't want a healer?

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**Private message from Aceso:**

**Aceso:** Hello Faultline I'm interested in purchasing your services in exchange for healing.

**Faultline:** What kind of services?

**Aceso:** Protection

**Faultline:** We're willing to talk. Meet us at Somer's Rock.

Somer's Rock was on the other side of town and I can't afford the bus. Public transport is finally available again and I can't take it.

Somer's Rock was a dingy little bar that I was somewhat surprised hadn't collapsed yet. Both because it had been a meeting place for capes since before I was born and because, obviously, no one had ever paid to make sure it was structurally sound. Which actually made sense—why would you put money into a building which would be destroyed in a cape fight any day now?

I swung open the door, watching a couple of paint chips fall to the ground, and stepped inside. Sitting in the chairs surrounding the largest table in the center of the room, facing me imposingly, were Faultline and her teammates: Newter, Gregor, Spitfire, and Labyrinth.

Faultline wore an interesting mesh of riot gear and a dress. She had a full face mask and a bulletproof vest while also wearing a skirt. Maybe it was a bulletproof skirt? That would be kind of cool. She was sitting in the center of her team between Newter and Gregor with her arms folded. She couldn't use her power to directly hurt me, but if she opened a hole underneath me I didn't have much of a counter.

Gregor was to Faultline's right. He was a big guy with translucent skin and a big belly, which I knew was something he could use to mix up chemicals to spit at people. I could probably design some bacteria to break them down if it came to a fight, but I don't think I would have enough time if he hit me with acid.

Newter had bright orange skin and dark red hair, though I remember it being pink. Did it change or did he just dye it? Either way it added to his strange color scheme, which was topped off with his eyes. They were light blue, corner to corner with no sclera. I couldn't see it, but I knew he had a tail that he sometimes used to deliver the hallucinogens in his sweat to people during fights.

On the far left next to Newter, Labyrinth appeared to be relatively present; she was looking at me and didn't have the dreamlike expression I noticed last time I saw her. Her power was crazy strong. She could replace her entire surroundings with another dimension. Tattletale had used her shaker power in conjunction with Scrub's to open a portal to another Earth; no one had done that since Professor Haywire decades ago. She was also pretty cute.

Spitfire was next to Gregor and wearing a full body red suit. It reminded me of a cross between Harley Quinn and a hazmat suit. It was almost certainly fireproof. If it came to a fight, the sterilization from her fire would be annoying, but I did know a little bit about thermophilic bacteria so I wouldn't be too out of luck.

Their positioning was a fairly obvious intimidation tactic, would have worked on me when I was fifteen, but most of the people I met in the Birdcage were far scarier.

I figured the best thing to do in this situation was to not let them see my nervousness, even if it came from worry that the deal wouldn't work out instead of their intimidation attempt.

I walked to a chair opposing Faultline and took a seat. I'm not sure if I should be the one to start the conversation or if I should wait for her to- Faultline began talking, interrupting my train of thought.

"You said you wanted protection. Protection from what?"

"I'm a rogue and we don't tend to last long. The only rogue in the city is Parian and that's just because her power doesn't have a lot of utility for the Empire. And even then I've heard they're making moves on her. My power would be very useful for them and I'm not confident I can chase them off constantly. I don't expect you to beat the entire Empire, just help me chase off whoever tries to fuck with me."

"'Whoever tries to fuck with you'? That's a pretty broad category," she commented.

"I'm still gonna want your help if the ABB or the Merchants come after me. If the PRT gets pushy we can negotiate a separate agreement," I said, shrugging.

"That's a very large request in exchange for healing when none of my team are even hurt. Unless you can help Newter and Gregor?" she asked. The two case 53s looked at me a bit more intensely.

"I can't. I might be able to change them temporarily, but they'd be back they way they were within a day," I admitted. Neither Gregor nor Newter look particularly surprised, but they did seem a little disappointed. That was true, but I did have a way around that. I could mess with their powers, the way I did to Skitter's, which could allow me to change their appearance permanently. I doubt they would go for it, though, as I still wasn't especially experienced at using my trump rating and I didn't want to give away that I had one anyway.

"Then I don't think what you're offering is worth what you want," she objected. I thought she was understating how much she valued my power, which isn't surprising. You don't want to look too excited during negotiations.

"You're a mercenary group. You're almost guaranteed to get injured eventually, and given the size of your team that would put you all out of action. Avoiding that must mean that you pass up on a lot of the better paying jobs you get offered. I'll also throw in a little extra, some tuneups and stuff: stronger bones, stronger skin, better vision—that kind of thing."

"Would these 'tuneups' apply to Newter and Gregor as well, since you said any changes you made to them would revert within a day?"

"I… actually don't know. I haven't tried making these types of changes to case 53s before. I don't think there's any kind of risk, so if they're up for it I can try and follow up with them the next day."

"We'll think about your offer and get back to you in a couple days," Faultline announced.

"I'll see you then."

The Humbert Hotel was one of those luxurious hotels that probably cost $500 a night. Perfect. I would get to healing more than just the super rich, but right now I need the money so I picked someone who seemed rich, a Mister Ross. He told me to come here to room 251 in New York. I had spent the rest of my money to get on a train and get here, so if this didn't turn out I was gonna be in a tight spot.

The decor was a little gaudy, but less so than I would have expected. There was a large chandelier and some paintings that looked like they were from the renaissance, but there were also some plain black chairs that looked pretty cushy.

The front desk was made of some dark wood, maybe mahogany, I don't know. I walk up to the man behind the desk and ask where Mr. Ross in room 251 is.

"If you take the elevator just over there," he points to the left "and go all the way down the hall it will be on the right."

"Thank you." I nod at him and go to the elevator.

The hall to Ross's room was pretty nice. It had some paintings of landscapes that reminded me of that painting with melting clocks, I didn't remember what it was called.

Okay, here it was, room 251. I knocked on the door and after a couple of seconds an older man, 50 or so, opened the door

"Hello I'm Aceso. I believe your son requires my services." He looked pretty grumpy; maybe I woke him up? No, he'd responded way too quickly for that. I supposed it would forever remain a mystery.

"Yes. Please come in." He pulled the door the rest of the way open and turned hobbled back to a chair and sat down. What was that walk? Did he have a broken foot or something? That would explain the grumpiness. "Jonathan! Can you come here please?" A boy came from a room to the right and looked at me for a second then, looked to the man. "This is Aceso. She's whom we came here to see. She can cure schizophrenia."

Jonathan looked at me and blinked. Tt was kind of creepy. His lack of expressiveness made him kind of seem like a doll and fall into the uncanny valley. I forced a smile and walked forward and put out my hand.

"Hello Jonathan, how are you?" I was pretty sure my smile was convincing, not that I could tell from his expression, which was still completely blank.

"Hi." He shook my hand and I took a look at his brain. The most obvious thing was that his cerebral ventricles, the pockets of fluid in his brain, were a bit large. Second was a little part of his frontal lobe called the medial frontal cortex, which was really close to the middle of his brain, but that didn't matter. It was small. Not tiny, but a little goes a long way especially in the brain, and his was like 7% smaller than normal. There were a couple of other parts that seemed small and his dopamine levels seemed high for just standing here. Did he think I was cute or something? No, there were none of the other signs of arousal.

I let go of his hand, before things got too weird. I don't think I was shaking his hand for more than three seconds. Probably. I stepped back and looked at the two of them.

"Okay! So what are you asking for specifically?" I asked

"We want you to cure Jonathan's schizophrenia along with whatever other mental illnesses or disabilities he may have," the man replied. May? Do they not know? I suppose they could suspect he has something else going on but they can't tell because the schizophrenia obscures most of the symptoms. Or they're just keeping their options open. Or both.

"Do you have reason to believe he has anything else? Just so I know what to look for."

"He has a bunch of the symptoms of bipolar disorder, but they're pretty similar to schizophrenia's."

"Okay thank you for telling me. I can cure the schizophrenia and the bipolar if he has it for $800,000." Stay calm. I picked him because he's rich. It's a lot, but not the most expensive surgery around. Heart transplants are about twice as much.

"That seems pretty high," the man grumbled.

Don't panic. "It is, but I'm offering a cure for something that the only other treatments are symptomatic and they're not that great either." He definitely going to pay. He just wants to see if he can get a better deal easily. Smile and seem confident.

He stared at me, considering.

"Fine." He stuck a hand out. I shook and realized that he did in fact have a fracture in his second metatarsal.

"Do you want me to fix your foot too? I can do it now for just like two thousand." I probably should have done this before I gave my price, but too late now.

He blinked. "I didn't know there was actually wrong with it. I just stepped on a rock."

Stepped on a rock!? Did he jump on it? "Damn, what kind of rock did you step on? Never mind. Yeah, you have a fracture, you want me to fix it?"

"Uh sure."

I grabbed his arm and got the osteoblasts to start replicating and made more osteocytes to fix whatever I didn't get around to and finished it up with some lining cells.

"OK, done. Give it an hour and you should be good as new."

"Wow, thanks. I had the impression that you worked slower than that." Shit! I completely forgot I was supposed to be super slow! I guess I'm glad that I didn't bother to make everything perfect.

"It was just a hairline fracture. If it was an actual break it would have taken me days." I said, looking away and trying to seem bashful.

"It is still very impressive. You can do it that easily for Jonathan?" he asked.

"The brain is much more complex, but I am confident." I walked over to the boy and held out my hand. He hesitated then gave he his hand. He was clearly nervous, going by his brain chemistry, though it seemed similar to worry. It was probably how paranoia showed up with my powers.

To actually cure him, the most obvious thing to do is correct the structural deformities I noticed earlier. I grew his superior temporal gyrus, his medial temporal cortex, and his medial frontal cortex. That mostly took up the space that was left open to the cerebral ventricles, but now I needed to let the fluid that was there drain so as to avoid hydrocephalus. I shoved it into the bloodstream. That's where it's supposed to drain to anyway, his kidneys will deal with it. I also fixed how his dopamine system worked and filtered out the excess in his brain. Oh! I guess that's why he had a bunch of dopamine in his system earlier, it's part of his schizophrenia. Finally I got rid of his paranoia and broke up some of those neural pathways to make him less likely to be paranoid in the future. I may also have skrewed up a couple of memories, but human memory is super fallible anyway.

One last sweep to check if I missed anything. I guess I didn't really miss this, but I'll fix up this cavity any way and… Done.

"You are officially cured of schizophrenia. I would recommend using your brain a lot in the next few days to get your new brain tissue doing things, though everyday life might be just fine for that purpose, so I guess you can skip that if you want to. If you have any more symptoms let me know and I'll take another look. I very much doubt you will though."

Jonathan smiled at me, then it widened into a grin, then it widened even more and he started laughing. He lurched forward to give me a hug, which I accepted. I wasn't that surprised, but I was glad that I could see positive effects so quickly.

"Thank you. Thank you so much," he cried into my shoulder. The man sat staring at us, slack jawed. He probably hadn't seen his son act like this in a while.

"Yes. Thank you. I can't tell you how grateful I am for you bringing Jonathan back to me." He started getting choked up toward the end.

"I'm glad I could help." This was less trying than I remembered it being. I thought I was desensitized to the gratitude years ago, but I had to admit, it was kinda sweet.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

My brand new bank account with The Number Man had $561,413. Only 70% of what the man paid me, but that was taxes for you. That was still a lot of money. I knew dad had made far more than that, but this was mine.

I still missed him though. If he was in normal prison I could break him out, but not from the Birdcage. I do have the advantage of knowing it's possible for people to get out. So all I have to do is convince Cauldron to let him out. Like that's going to happen. The most likely strategy would be to tell them I'm from the future and know how to defeat Scion, but that would probably just end up with me getting kidnapped and treated rather like the Yàngbǎn, so that was nixed.

Victoria was still within reach though. I **was** going to see her.

But, before that, I was going to buy something decent to eat.

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**Private message from Aceso:**

**Aceso:** Hi Amy. Sorry about what I said. I didn't intend for it to sound that way. I would still like to get to know you, just not in a romantic kind of way.

**Panacea:** Yeah, sorry I freaked out. I would be fine with getting coffee if you want.

**Aceso:** I'd love to. In costume or out? I'm good with either, you seem trustworthy. :)

**Panacea:** Really? Are you sure? That's kind of a big thing for someone you just met.

**Aceso:** I know your name and I doubt you of all people would attack me in my CI.

**Panacea:** Out of costume then if you're really okay with it.

**Aceso:** Yep. Verve? 4:30?

**Panacea:** See you there.

I sat back and sighed.

Meeting her in my civilian guise was a risk. I still looked like her. Granted, I had green hair and tattoos and was a bit older, but she would still notice instantly. There wasn't a lot I could do about it, but if I wanted to see Vicky much at all it would have to come up sooner or later. So I was just going to play it up as a cool coincidence. The only other likely possibilities are me being a stranger of some sort and as long as I don't make an attempt to impersonate my other self, it's a little quirky, not dangerous.

Actually, pretending to be her sounded pretty fun. I could walk in and announce that I dyed my hair and got a bunch of tattoos and watch Vicky freak out. That was totally a bad idea, but I'm gonna ask Amy to let me do it anyway. Just not while Carol is around.

Before I go on my not date with myself I need to get something to wear. The only clothes I have that I didn't make with my power are the ones I arrived with and those were not the best and I don't even have running water to wash them with so they're starting to smell.

I didn't have much style before the Birdcage and while I was in there, my options were limited mostly to the uniforms Dragon sent down. My new clothes weren't some amazing fashion statement and I didn't look as good as Victoria or any of her friends. I did take inspiration from suggestions Vicky used to make so I should at least look decent. More importantly I look different from who I'm going to meet.

I'm thinner too now, a bit more wiry and athletic. I picked up working out in prison. Dad did it and it fit with my then new habit of getting tattoos. Speaking of, sometime soon I want to get another. Time travel is a pretty big event in my life. Maybe a clock or watch?

Back to the point, I should look good enough now with my tighter-than-I-would-prefer jeans and green tank top to not embarrass myself talking with Other Amy. And there she was now, waiting for me in a booth in our favorite coffee shop. I slipped into the seat across from her. She looked up and her brow furrowed.

"So it's not just me? We do look basically identical, right?" I said.

"Yeah… Do you have a changer power?" she asked.

"Nope. Just good genes." She looked a bit conflicted at this, probably wanting to disagree, but not wanting to insult me. I don't really disagree, neither of us look good, even with my new clothes. "You see why I wanted to meet you out of costume."

"I guess so." We are horrible at social. What did I like to talk about before? I don't even know. I'm gonna talk about cool organisms.

"Have you ever seen water bears?" I know she has, I'd thought they were pretty cool.

"Yeah! I think they're super cool, especially their resistance to radiation."

"I love them too. I got a look at one and when it dried out my power stopped working on it. It was really weird to feel it kind of fluctuate, then disappear."

"Your power doesn't work on them?!" she squealed, looking like a five year old, "I really need to get one now."

"Find some moss and there will probably be a few in there," I mentioned.

"Know any other cool animals?" Yes! I have enticed her.

"I don't know about animals, but power interactions are almost always interesting. Find someone with a power that works on biology in some way and see what you can do together." A lot of the most interesting stuff was brain related, but there was no way I was getting her to do that anytime soon, so I suggested something she would be willing to try.

"I don't have a lot of options for that. No one else in New Wave does anything bio related. I guess I could talk to Aegis. I could give him a third arm and see if he adapts to it really well." I blinked. That was a great idea! How had I never thought of that?

"If you want, we could also do something together? Make a giant robot made of plants?" I suggested. "If your power would work on that," I added. I didn't want to seem too knowledgeable about my counterpart.

"What are you gonna do with plant robots?" she asked.

"I hadn't really thought that far ahead. I could use it as a guard or something. You could keep it if you want."

"I don't know what to do with a plant robot either."

"We could sell it?" I suggested. "To the Protectorate or whoever?" I didn't think she would go for that, but she did seem to be considering it. I figured that made sense. It wasn't like I was against doing things in a more rogue-like way. I was just hamstrung by dumb child labor laws and afraid of breaking my rules and hurting people or Carol flipping out on me. She probably saw working with me as something of a safety net. I wouldn't let her unleash some sort of plague and become a second Nilbog.

"I guess we could sell it to the Protectorate. Or maybe the Guild. Dragon could probably do something with it," she decided.

"I'm totally down to sell Dragon a giant robot," I agreed. "Do you want to build it now or later?"

"Now's fine. I don't have much else to do." She shrugged.

"The best place to get a lot of material would probably be the forest, which, not entirely coincidentally, is where I'm living for the moment."

"You're living in the forest," she said, nonplussed.

"I get to make my own tree house. It's great, I can redesign things whenever I want with no hassle, I don't have any neighbors, and I have plenty of plants to work with whenever I, say, want to build a giant robot. Also I was broke until like two hours ago."

"Ah, there we go," she nodded knowingly. "Sure, I would love to go over to your— forest." She smiled. Ha ha. You're hilarious, but I could do better. I swept out of my seat and offered my hand with a flourish.

"Then let us depart mademoiselle and escape to my humble abode." Her lips quirked, betraying her attempt not to smile.

"Lead on my friend." She took my hand and we started back towards the forest.

"So I was thinking we would start out with the basics: making artificial muscles that don't require a whole animal-like circulatory system so we have something to build the robot out of."

"That works for me. But we are going to need _some_ sort of circulatory system, right? Because we have to get the ATP to the muscles, since it would be pretty difficult to produce it there."

"Definitely," I agreed. "We're probably also gonna need to make some other source of energy, because photosynthesis isn't nearly fast enough to provide the energy for a robot to walk around and do stuff." As we walk, I realize we're starting to get into ABB territory, just at the edge of the city, not near the border with the Empire's where I would expect members to be flashing their colors everywhere, so not something to be worried about.

"The two most obvious ways of doing that that I see are making a digestive system and feeding it or manually taking resources from a nearby organism. The second would definitely be easier short term, but not a lot of people can do that. I can and I would think you could too, but Dragon would probably have trouble."

"That's a good point," I admitted, "Maybe it would be more accurate to say we're building an artificial organism with the capability for movement, but with no brain?"

"That would be, but it also sounds gross so let's stick with plant robot. Actually give me a minute, I need to call Victoria before she starts thinking I've been kidnapped." She pulled out her phone and dialed. "Hi Vicky… I'm with that new cape, Aceso." I'd never given her my name. Damn. I couldn't just give her my real name for obvious reasons, or even 'Amelia.' What should I call myself? Jade? "Help," she said sarcastically and rolled her eyes good naturedly. I wasn't really sure what was up with that. Hopefully Vicky wasn't coming to break my legs. "I'm gonna be with her a while… I doubt you'd be interested, but you can if you want… Ugh. Fine. We're at Lexington and Fifth." She hung up. Strange, I wouldn't expect her to be upset that Victoria's coming.

Oh! I wanted to prank her!

"Hey Amy." She looked over to me,

"Hm?"

"Wanna prank her?" She looked skeptical. "You go around the corner or something and when I see her I say how I dyed my hair and got a bunch of tattoos." She snorted and glanced away.

"Sure. I guess I could stand just inside that shop over there." She gestured to a little chinese grocery store.

"This is gonna be great." She did look amused.

"Remember she's gonna be flying here, so don't look surprised," she said, walking toward the store. I nodded.

I stood on the corner, exactly where Amy said she would be and waited for our sister to show up.

It didn't take long before I saw her. Geez. She was excited and happy and bold. She hadn't looked like this in years. I wondered who's fault _that_ was. She flew down toward me and I felt her aura's positive side for the first time in years. It was a rush. I felt my lips curving into a smile and I knew in my heart all I had to do was stay with Vicky and everything would be alright.

No. That was dangerous. That sort of thinking lead to disaster and I was determined to learn from my mistake. Was I really that weak? I saw my sister for one second and I wanted to go right back to how I was before. I felt like a drug addict craving another hit and willing to do anything for one more second of bliss. Revelations could come later. Right now I needed to sell that I was really her 15 year old sister.

"Hey Vicky! Guess what! I dyed my hair and got a bunch of tattoos!" I showed off my arms. She stopped before she came all the way down.

"What?" Then she dropped fast and flew down to me. "How!? It's been like two hours!"

"YouTube tutorials are amazing." Her expression was glorious.

"First of all, no. Second, tutorials on how to give yourself tattoos? Third, are you wearing makeup?!" I saw Amy walking up behind Victoria, trying not to laugh and give herself away.

"Yep, also I have one last surprise for you."

"I cloned myself!" Amy shouted, right behind Victoria. She spun around mid-air and flew out from between us and looked back and forth, mouth gaping.

"Actually we're long lost identical twins," I corrected. That might have been a bit close to the truth. If we ever got a DNA test done it would be pretty awkward. The clone thing presented the same problem though, so whatever.

"I'm so confused," Victoria stated.

"We just look really similar," I lied.

"And we decided to mess with you," added Amy.

Victoria hesitated then looked at me. "What's your power again?" she asked.

"I'm a florakinetic, I manipulate the biology of plants and as a secondary power I can manipulate animal biology a bit. Just with chemicals and stuff," I explained, downplaying my similarities to Panacea. Victoria gave me a considering look. Oh! I should've included that I couldn't use my power on myself. "I also can't affect myself, if you were thinking I changed my appearance to match."

"Sorry, it's just a pretty big coincidence, y'know."

"Yeah, I was pretty surprised when I first saw her, but we don't look _totally_ identical, even ignoring acquired traits. I just told you they were due to makeup."

"Yeah, that did confuse me a bit. I thought you were contouring, but not wearing foundation or concealer. Contouring well too, so I had no idea what was up with you."

"Yep, me and Amy make a good team." I offered my hand to her. "My name is Jade by the way." She took my hand and gave it a strong shake and gave a bright smile that didn't look entirely genuine.

"You can't do that thing Amy can where she knows everything about you from a touch—can you?" my idiot of a sister asked after we finished shaking hands. I wasn't quite sure how to say yes without making it sound creepy or even if I should, but Vicky took that to be confirmation.

"Well then count yourself lucky, not many people get to see that much of me," she said with a wink. Wow. Okay. I didn't know how to respond to that. Was she flirting with me? Wasn't she still dating Dean? Were they broken up now? Should I flirt back? No. That was a bad idea, even without me knowing that she was super straight. Maybe she assumed I wouldn't be interested and from how red my face was, it was now dawning on her with horror that a lesbian just got a highly detailed blueprint of her body?

"Yeah…"

That was not a good response. If she had doubted I was into her she didn't anymore. She turned to my doppelganger and asked what we were doing. I thought I saw a bit of red on Victoria's cheeks too, but I was probably just imagining it. Maybe. Amy didn't look too, but that was a problem I knew how to approach.

"I should probably work on making the robot," I said to Vicky, trying not to blush too much.

I turned to Amy and returned to our previous conversation. "To eat, our giant robot will need a stomach and ways to break down its sustenance. Stomach acid, digestive enzymes and maybe some bacteria."

"I'm not sure we'll need the bacteria. I'm pretty sure I can figure out how to make the robot produce cellulase without the bacteria so we can just do that." She still looked kind of annoyed, but now she was distracted.

"And we can probably also make similar things for other bacteria we might need so we won't have to go find them."

"Why are you two making a giant robot anyway? World domination?" interjected Vicky.

"We would need an army of giant robots for that," I refuted.

"We're going to sell it to Dragon," explained Amy.

"World domination via economics," I agree.

We were getting into the forest now and it wouldn't take long for them to spot the trees whose bases formed a giant rectangular prism.

"So, how far are we going?" Victoria asked.

"Not too far," I replied, "We should be able to see it any minute now."

"It wouldn't happen to be those trees that look like a box—would it?" asked Amy raising an eyebrow at me.

"Are you against tree houses?" I said.

"I'm against that tree house. It's just a big box."

"Agreed," Vicky added, taking her side.

"Well _sorry_, the house I built by hand doesn't look nice."

"Just add windows, it's not that hard to make it, like, five times better," my evil twin criticized.

"I don't want to let animals and stuff in," I protested.

"Can't you make something transparent to put there? If you're going to make a robot you should be able to make something clear," my evil twin's evil sister said.

"Fine, I'll make a window." I walked up to my perfectly nice house and started to replace a section of wall with what was essentially a very large square lens that couldn't stretch like a lens from your eye could. The majority of my window was made up of extremely long lens fibers that were occasionally separated by thin tubes to allow nutrients to reach them. I wrapped the entire thing in a lens capsule and took a look at my window. It was very nice. The surrounding wood seemed to flow over the lens leaving it to have a sort of rounded square shape. The actual window was slightly more rounded outward than normal windows were, but I think it looked more natural.

"Damn. That was pretty cool," Vicky complemented.

"Thank you." I smiled at her and tried to ignore my heart skipping a beat. "Though there isn't actually much in there, just a bed and what is essentially an indoor outhouse."

"You have an out house in your bedroom? That seems like a design flaw," Amy said.

"Yeah… I'll probably move my bed and make them into separate rooms. But you don't want to help me redesign my house. Unless you do. I'd be totally down for that."

Amy chuckled. "Maybe some other time. For now, robots!" She ran over to a tree that was not part of my house and made a little protrusion from the trunk. The bark seemed to melt into the wood underneath, which was steadily growing paler and seemed to be becoming more corded, like muscle. It disconnected from the tree and flopped into Amy's hand looking rather like a chicken breast. After a couple more seconds it kind of jumped up into the air, becoming much more round for a second, before falling down into Amy's hands and becoming flat again. "Artificial muscle complete!" she cried, grinning at me.

"That is really cool, let me see," I said, walking over and setting my hand on the blob. It was a bit firmer than I expected, probably a result of its origins. It was, in most ways, a perfectly normal muscle. It didn't have a circulatory system of any sort sort and the individual cells still had many traits associated with plant cells, including the cell wall, which was probably why it felt so much more firm than human muscle. I took my hand away from her creation and stepped back. "Wow! That's amazing."

She grinned at me hugely. "Thanks. It's really cool to make something like this. It isn't actually functional though. It doesn't have any way to drain the lactic acid or even keep the cells sustained. They're already dying," she said, deflating a little.

"I wasn't expecting an entire self sufficient organism in three seconds," I comforted her. "At this rate I expect we might even finish today."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

We didn't finish that day, but we came close enough that any biologist or engineer would be jealous. I hadn't received a tinker rating after I got out of the Birdcage, but that was mostly because what was left of the government was more interested in self perpetuation and staving off societal collapse than having updated records on capes that weren't causing problems. I expected to be at least a tinker four after Dragon saw what Amy and I had made. Victoria was surprisingly helpful though, so maybe I was just underestimating the human ability to problem solve.

Aside from that Victoria did offhandedly mention that since I didn't own the property my house was on I was technically breaking the law. I wasn't in a hurry to give the Protectorate any ammunition against me so I decided to buy the land. Because it was supposedly an empty plot of land with nothing built on it, it cost far less than any house would have, so I ended up being able to buy it and the surrounding few acres for $80,000. The only reason it was even that expensive was that it was just outside a city.

The next day I went and talked to the utility companies to get water and electricity to my new house and that was going to cost $30,000. At this rate I was going to run out of money in a week.

I wasn't actually of course; setting up utilities wasn't going to be a daily expense, nor was buying the land, but if I had to make large purchases on short notice, I would want to have money in the bank. Maybe I would need Faultline to do something that wasn't covered in our agreement or

I got arrested and needed to pay my own bail.

Luckily, I was the best healer on the planet. Aside from Scion, but fuck Scion.

There was some dude with brain cancer that would pay $300,000 for me to take a look at him and would pay for repeated visits since I "couldn't heal tumors in one session." That sounded like a great deal of money for relatively little work.

I gave him a call on my newly acquired phone.

"Hello Mr. Schneider, I heard that you were in need of my services and were already in Brockton Bay."

"Yes! Thank you so much! I live at 436 7th Street. Do you know when you would be available to meet me?"

"I'm pretty open right now, but I would prefer sooner than later if that works for you. Today even, but tomorrow or the day after work too."

"Today! That'd be great! I can be ready in a couple of hours if that's fine," he cried. His excitement was understandable, but it still annoyed me. He didn't have to shout everything.

"One o'clock? That works. See you then." I hung up and contemplated how I was going to spend my time until then.

Research. My memory of what capes were present was shaky. I knew the ABB and Empire were still strong and the Merchants were mostly just stoners and not nearly as powerful as they were after Leviathan hit and fucked the economy even worse than it was before.

Frank Schneider's house was so stereotypical of a middle class family living the American dream that it stood out in Brockton Bay. A medium-sized two story house with four windows, a nice green lawn and even a goddamned white picket fence.

I was surprised he didn't live in a mansion with how much he was paying me, but there weren't many mansions in this city. I wondered why he didn't move. Maybe he was perpetually trying to get onto my—Panacea's waiting list. Or maybe it was for some obscure reason I couldn't possibly know.

I knocked on the front door and a few seconds later an old man appeared and grinned at me.

"Aceso! I'm so glad you're here. Come in, come in." I thanked him and stepped inside. He was wearing a nice flannel button-down shirt and slacks, giving him a happy grandfatherly air about him.

Looking around, his house seemed nice. Clean, a little sparse, but he had some awesome photos of nature stuff. A beautiful picture hung on the wall depicting a Japanese maple tree with orange and yellow leaves with the blue sky shining through against a background of green foliage. In his living room another art piece sat on his mantle displaying a man sitting on a small platform built way above the ground, around a thin tree looking down a mountainside.

The only other things of note were an American flag hung a few feet above the fireplace and a rifle mounted about half way between the two.

"So, do you have a solid diagnosis or do you want me to take a look?"

"I'm pretty sure that I have central nervous system lymphoma because of my AIDS, but I haven't done a lot of extensive tests. I just got diagnosed," he mumbled, sounding ashamed.

"I'll give you a more in-depth look then," I said and offered my hand.

He hesitantly put his left hand in mine and I got a look at him. The most obvious thing was that his immune system was heavily compromised and the cause was immediately apparent. His blood was full of HIV. I could heal that and likely would today, but first I was going to take a look at the actual cancer. He was still in the relatively early stages of CNS lymphoma. He only had two tumors. One in his right arm, impeding nerve signals to the point of paralysis. That would be why he used his left hand to grab mine. His other tumor was in his visual cortex, but small. He was probably having some vision problems, but nothing debilitating. Might as well ask.

"Have you been having any vision problems?" I asked.

"Uhh, yes. My vision in my right eye is somewhat blurry. I can still see, but when I first noticed it scared me."

"So your diagnosis was right. You have two tumors: one near your shoulder, that's the one causing the paralysis, and another in your left visual cortex causing your blurred vision," I explained. "You're correct that I can't heal all of it at once, but I can definitely fix it all eventually and prevent it from spreading in the meantime. AIDS is way easier for me to cure though. I can do that today." His face lit up like I had just told him I could cure his debilitating and often fatal illness.

"Really! I can give you five hundred thousand just for that!" I mentally stumbled as he grinned at me. FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND! He's supposed to be haggling down, not up! I knew he was already going to pay way more than that for the cancer treatment, but he's going to throw around that kind of money after he's got my attention? That confirms it. He was either rich beyond all imagination or he just didn't value money.

"Can you cure me now?" he asked and grabbed my arm desperately. I was about to comply when something occurred to me. Maybe, he didn't intend to pay me. This was part of why I registered with the PRT: I can call the cops on him without getting myself in trouble for having an illegal business.

"Sure, but can you pay me first? It's just a little hard to believe you'll give me 500k so easily." He looked a bit taken aback. Was that rude? Probably.

"Er—Yeah. Sure." He let go of me and fiddled with his phone for a few seconds, then looked up. "It should go through in a minute," he said. I pulled out my phone and opened the Number Man app and waited for my balance to double.

Ha. Dean had nothing on how much I could spoil Vicky now. If I actually did that I had no doubt that she could burn through a million dollars in a week, though. She was totally the type to lose all her money in an instant if she won the lottery. It was even more infuriating because she knew the statistics and how to manage money. She just wouldn't. She went through her allowance the moment she got it because "$20 isn't enough to do anything important anyway."

Maybe I shouldn't be so critical. I was going through my money really fast. Maybe I would be dirt poor again in a week. Then I could just make it again, so I might be more sensible than her anyway.

I got a notification that I had just received a wire transfer and I did indeed have nearly a million dollars now.

"Your hand again please," I asked him.

I broke down the virus throughout his body and then made his bones start producing huge amounts of CD4 cells.

"You no longer have HIV and your immune system should be in reasonable condition in a couple of days."

"Wow… That was…" he trailed off.

"Anticlimactic." I finished.

"I was going to say amazing, but I suppose it was that too." He smiled at me.

I shrugged and returned my attention to his remaining ailments, namely: cancer. I made the cells bind to each other a bit more tightly to prevent metastasis. I marked a bunch of the cancerous cells for apoptosis and stopped the cells replicating.

"You should be doing better now. It won't spread, won't grow and should be shrinking. I wouldn't expect your vision or arm to get significantly better in the next couple of days though. Maybe after my second visit."

"Thank you so much. I can't thank you enough," he said earnestly. Then he fiddled with his phone again, presumably sending me more money. After he finished, he looked up and glanced at me a bit nervously, like a schoolboy with a crush. I hoped to god he didn't have a crush on me. "From what I hear the cape scene is very dangerous," he stated nervously, "and I happen to know some people that might be able to keep others, like the ABB, from trying to hurt or exploit you." I did not expect that. I was going to have Faultline to protect me pretty soon, but if he knew someone in the PRT or something, that could be really helpful.

"I might be interested in something like that," I said cautiously.

"I could give them a call now if you want? Or if you would rather wait I could do it next time we meet."

"Now is as good a time as ever." Really it was better than usual since my relationship with Faultline was still in flux, but I didn't want to sound desperate.

He nodded, dialing this friend of his and then speaking into his phone.

"Hello. There's a new cape that doesn't really have any support and she's worried about being harrassed by the ABB or other groups. I thought your organization might be well situated to help her… Okay." He hung up and looked at me. "Someone will be here in 15 minutes to talk to you about it."

I no longer felt quite so good about this. The way he talked before made it sound like he knew someone personally. Now it sounded like he just called the PRT help desk or something. Maybe he just knew someone a bit higher ranked and I was gonna get a deal later. But it didn't feel like that. If he called the PRT, I was going to be in a horrible position from a negotiating perspective.

Unless, he called Accord. Shit, that would explain some things, like why he talked a little stilted into the phone, and why his house was a perfectly normal American home. This was bad.

Wait, was it? Accord would be a great person to have on my side. Wait, no. It was definitely bad because I was in no way prepared to deal with Accord. I wasn't completely opposed to working with him, but he wouldn't be in my top five people to ask for help, even with a friend advocating for me.

Aside from that, Schneider knew I wasn't prepared for Accord. There was no way he would throw me into a negotiation with _Accord_ of all people with no prep time.

The criminal side wasn't something I had considered. Did Schneider have criminal ties? It would explain the absurd amount he was paying me. Merchants? No way. Empire?

…

His name was German. That was barely even evidence though. There were tons of people with German names. There weren't a lot of other possible culprits. It wasn't the ABB so unless it was someone from far away it was probably the Empire. Well, it could be the Elite, but they didn't have that much of a presence on the east coast. Probably not.

Empire definitely made the most sense and I was even less inclined to work with them than Accord.

There was a knock on the door. Well, I figured it was time to see if my guess was right. Schneider went to answer the door and when he returned Victor was in toe. That wasn't so bad. There are far worse people it could have been, even in the Empire. Night, Fog, or Hookwolf would all be much worse matchups for me. He was wearing a black metal breastplate, which wouldn't really shield him from anything I could do. He was wearing a blood red shirt. I knew that was part of his costume, but I found it an odd choice. It did go with the Empire's color pallet so that was probably why he picked it, but I still thought it looked dumb.

"Hello, Aceso. My name is Victor. I've heard you are worried about the ABB or Merchants attacking you or trying to obtain your services."

"Or the Empire," I interjected.

"The Empire's job is to protect people like you. We just want to keep anyone that might want to take advantage of you from doing so."

"People like me? White people you mean. I'm not really interested in being protected by a bunch of nazis."

"Are you sure about that? The ABB or Merchants would have no hesitation about abducting you and forcing you to work for them."

"I'm sure. You never want to piss off your doctor and if they do, I can always call the heroes."

"I think you overestimate the Protectorate's ability and willingness to assist you." Oh? He moved on to threats that fast? I _was_ being pretty hostile.

"I'm not worried."

"Really? We have a lot more capes than the PRT and are more willing to use them." His tone shifted to something a bit darker. It was kind of hilarious.

"I am not in the least affected by your amateur attempts at intimidation. You could even bring Hookwolf in here. You really don't faze me." He looked at me a little suspiciously, then he pulled out his phone and called someone.

"We're not fighting, but could you come in here?" Shit. He was actually bringing Hookwolf in here. I should not have said that. Well, I guess I can prepare a disease to knock them out or something. A suped-up flu for fainting or something like POTS that gave you sudden uncontrollable fatigue? I can do something like that, just attack the autonomic nervous system in the right way.

I made the bacteria I would need, but releasing a super-flu on Brockton bay was a good way to be put on a list with Bonesaw and Nibog, so I made sure it would die in just a few minutes so there was no chance of it spreading.

The door banged open and someone started down the hall toward us. Schneider appeared to be growing increasingly concerned. Wait! Schneider still has a shit immune system and I'm about to release a super-flu!

Well, I'm out of time. I'll deal with him after I take care of Victor and Hookwolf. Or I could not. No, I wasn't going to kill everyone that pissed me off just because I felt like it.

I released my newly created "morpheus influenza" out of my mouth with a heavy sigh.

"Oh my god. It's a murderous metal dog. I hope it doesn't kill me." I said flatly.

"Bitch, you think I couldn't rip you to shreds? I don't mind getting some blood on this dude's carpet."

"Aceso, Hookwolf is an extremely strong parahuman and would certainly be able to defeat anyone likely to attempt to harm you. He can also be quite bellicose, so I would not recommend insulting him." Victor seemed to be having a hard time getting a read on me and was going back to attempting to appeal to me instead of threatening me. That was good. They would be more hesitant to attack me which would give morpheus a few more seconds to knock them out.

"Yes. He's very scary and I'm sure he would be able to beat the shit out of Skidmark if he wanted, but I'm thoroughly unenthused about having him as a bodygua—" Schneider's hacking cough cut me off. He stumbled backwards a few steps and collapsed onto a chair.

"I'm sorry, I just am suddenly feeling very tired. Please excuse me I'm going to…" he trailed off as his eyes unfocused then started to close when he passed out.

"Hookwolf, attack her." Victor said, looking concerned and raising a hand to his throat. Damn, should have filtered out more of the symptoms.

Hookwolf briefly gave Victor an annoyed glance before inverting to reveal his plethora of blades, which was now hurtling toward me. I dove left, turning it into a slightly awkward roll, and ran up to the fireplace to grab the rifle.

I spun back around, pointing the barrel at Hookwolf and pulling the trigger. It completely failed to fire and Hookwolf laughed at me, while only slowing down a little. Luckily that gave me enough time to run back toward the front door, while Hookwolf crashed through the fireplace and probably the wall.

Walls were not going to be a good solution to this problem.

Damn, I wished Faultline had gotten back to me a little quicker. Could I call her now? Well yes, but I really doubted that she would agree to the previous terms and get her team to fight Hookwolf and maybe more of the Empire right now and drop whatever they were doing. And even if she did, I probably didn't have the time it would take for them to get here.

No, I had to play this like I'm not getting any back up, unless I find a _really_ good stalling strategy.

I heard crashing behind the house and figured he was crashing through the backyard or something. I did get him with morpheus so he should be out in a few minutes if I can survive that long.

I started running down the street. Before I got too far my leg burst into agony and I fell to the ground. Looking back I saw Victor pointing the rifle at me. I must have dropped it in my hurry to get away from Hookwolf, which I was certainly regretting now. Before he could get another shot off he stumbled to the side and passed out on the sidewalk.

Hookwolf was going to be coming at me any second now so I had to get myself in a condition to walk now. I glanced at my leg. The bullet had hit my calf off center so I should be able to walk, but the pain would be a big problem, not to mention the blood loss.

Not much I could do about either of those things now, so I pushed myself up and stumbled to one side of Schneider's neighbor's house, hopefully blocking Hookwolf's view of me and buying me some time.

My leg burned and I felt the blood running down into my shoe. I slid down the wall and tried to breathe. My heart stopped as I heard the crunch of gravel and I suddenly knew Hookwolf was about to come around the corner of the building. Then I realized it was just my uninjured foot shifting over the gravel.

I needed to put pressure on the bullet wound to stop some of the blood loss. I started pulling up my pant leg to get a better look at it, but my hands were shaking too much for me to do so without agitating my leg. I did anyway, trying to work through the burning, stabbing agony.

It was a small wound on the outer side of my right calf muscle. It was clean, which was good, but there was also an exit wound, which meant I was bleeding more. I reached out to cover both holes with my hand and had to steady myself for a moment before I found my resolve and pressed down with my hand. Blinding agony shot through my flesh and I tried to muffle my scream with my now bloody hand.

I was not doing that again, it was a small wound. I would be fine. I looked down at my leg and noticed the larger pool of blood. Then looked back to the street and saw the trail of blood leading right to me. Please let Hookwolf be knocked out by now.

And I still needed to go fix Schneider. I hoped he hadn't died already, that would be very bad for my burgeoning career as a healer.

I wasn't hearing the crashes of destruction I would expect if Hookwolf was still rampaging around looking for me.

I pushed myself up with my good leg and started hopping toward the corner of the building so I could peek around. I tried to keep my leg steady as I jumped, but I couldn't completely keep it from being jerked a bit. Around the corner I saw Hookwolf laying face down in the center of the street naked. That would be one hell of a sight for anyone that happened to look out their window right now.

He wouldn't stay unconscious very long, the disease was probably already dying out and he and Victor would be up and kicking my ass any minute. I hopped over to him ever so slowly and painfully and bent down and set my hand on his shoulder.

I didn't want him getting up and coming after me when he woke up, and the Empire had Othala, so he would be fine as long as I didn't kill him. I weakened his spinal cord about half way down his back so he wouldn't be able to come after me. He would still be able to attack me as a metal wolf though so I also gave him cataracts.

Victor was next, then I would check on Schneider.

I hopped slowly over to Victor who was lying on the lawn with the rifle under him. He was lucky it didn't go off and blow his brains out. He started stirring. I hopped faster. No this wasn't going to work, I had maybe five seconds before I would have to fight a mostly functional Victor, while I still had a bullet wound. I was even beginning to feel faint. Victor's eyes snapped open and he scrambled to get up.

My eyes widened in panic and I finally put my right foot down and ran at him. Just as he got up I tackled him and used my power to constrict his carotid and vertebral arteries so no blood could get to his brain, which should knock him out in a matter of seconds.

We hit the ground and I felt the breath get knocked out of me from a blow to the diaphragm. Victor passed out and I immediately unconstricted his arteries. While the thought of him dying did give me a certain satisfaction, killing him would earn me much more attention than I would like. Instead I gave him the same treatment as Hookwolf- I dissolved part of his spinal cord and blinded him.

I wished I could do something that Othala wouldn't be able to fix, but there wasn't much I could do without getting caught. Well, actually I didn't care if they suspected me as long as the heroes didn't get pissy.

I gave him lung cancer.

Now I had to prevent Schneider from dying. I pushed myself up off of Victor and looked next to him where he'd dropped the rifle. I could use it as a crutch. That was probably not the safest thing, but if I kept the barrel pointed down it would probably be fine. I hopped over to the rifle and picked it up. Maybe it would be a better walking stick? It wasn't really long enough to be a full on crutch.

I made my way inside and to the living room where we had left Scheider. The wall was mostly gone and the fence separating this house from the one next door was similarly demolished, and finally the wall of the other house was scratched up, but wasn't severely damaged.

Schneider lay on the ground next to a chair, unconscious. He must have fallen out of it or maybe Victor pushed him off of it? No that was dumb. Why would he do that? And why did I care? I sat down, giving myself a rest and letting the lightheadedness that had begun to develop fade. I bent over and grabbed his hand and was surprised when no map of his body appeared to me. Did he trigger as a trump? No. I would have passed out if he had.

He was dead. That was really bad. Should I… try and cover it up? I could probably make it look like Hookwolf mauled him. The Empire would deny it, but the PRT wasn't going to trust _them_.

I could cut him with something to try and frame Hookwolf, but whatever I used would be obvious evidence that Hookwolf didn't kill him.

I heard sirens approaching. I would probably only have a few seconds to do whatever it is I was going to do. I couldn't think of anything. I would open up big slash wounds in Schneider except for the fact that he's dead so I can't use my power on him. I might be able to frame Victor instead by shooting him, but the PRT would hear a gunshot now since they're so close.

If I told the PRT it was an accident they wouldn't just ship me off to the Birdcage, not for something as minor as this. They probably wouldn't even send me to prison, just press gang me into the Wards. No Protectorate, I was an adult now. Would they still do that then? I think so. I was still a teenager so they would probably consider me impressionable and go for it.

Joining was… not really acceptable to me. I wouldn't have the autonomy I wanted and while I was more familiar with the problems of the Wards, I couldn't imagine that the Protectorate was free of all those problems. Armsmaster, the leader of the Protectorate, was going to break the Endbringer truce when Leviathan showed up. That was a sign of deeper problems if I ever saw one.

I could call Faultline and get her to break me out, but what then?

Thinking about it, Faultline's Crew had almost all the qualities I was looking for. Maybe I wouldn't be completely free to do what I wanted, but it would be a far sight better than in the Protectorate.

It was decided: I would join Faultline's Crew. If they would let me.

Now, how to deal with the PRT.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I sat in Schneider's chair next to his dead body and tried to ignore the pain in my leg. The adrenalin was mostly gone and with nothing else to focus on I was having a hard time doing anything but sitting there. I heard what were probably PRT vans pull up outside. I called out to them.

"Hey! Do you have an ambulance or something out there?" I knew they didn't, but hopefully that would get them to hurry up getting me to the hospital.

I saw Armsmaster walk in wearing his intimidating blue armor— halberd out and prepared to fight. Those vans I thought I heard were probably Armsmaster's bike.

"Oh, hi Armsmaster. You wouldn't happen to have something for a mild gunshot wound in that bike of yours, would you?" I said gesturing to my leg. That might have been a little overly blasé, but who gives a shit?

"Who are you?" he asked. "And who is he?" He motioned to Schneider on the ground.

"I'm a new rogue, Aceso. I registered the day before yesterday. He… well he got caught between us and he died before I got a chance to get to him." I shifted uneasily.

"I need to make sure Victor and Hookwolf aren't going to get away. I'll be with you in a minute" I said trying to conceal my irritation. I probably succeeded considering that this was Armsmaster I was talking to.

"They aren't going to be getting up anytime soon. That's what I was making sure of when he died." I snapped.

"Fine, I'll get you something. Wait here." He turned around and walked back outside. Yep. He didn't need to hurry or anything. It wasn't like I had lost a lot of blood.

A few seconds later he returned carrying a small round cylindrical object. Like a large tampon.

He knelt down in front of me and started rolling up my pant leg.

"Is this going to hurt?" I asked. It was already burning more just from my pants moving.

"Yes. But it shouldn't for very long. It includes an anesthetic." That was a relief.

He held the tampon close to the hole in my leg, pressed a button and a grey liquid squirted out and splashed into my wound. It burned even more intensely for a moment, but it quickly subsided and became far less painful than it had before. I could probably stand up now without almost fainting.

"Don't stand up," he instructed.

"I know," I replied. Back when I was still part of New Wave, I had seen plenty of patients that I hadn't treated do something similar and I wasn't going to imitate them, even if I _could_ stand up.

"I'm going to arrest Hookwolf and Victor now. Don't move." He left. Well, now that I had some time to myself and wasn't bordering on delirious from pain, maybe I should call Faultline and try to join her crew.

I pulled out my phone and dialed the mercenary.

"Aceso, we haven't decided if we were going to take your deal yet."

"Something has come up and I was thinking of forging a stronger relationship."

"Oh? What kind of relationship?"

"I join your team. I'll offer enhanced physiology on top of the healing and I could also assist with jobs you took." This was more nerve-wracking than it should be. Or maybe it wasn't. If she turned me down I would be in a pretty rough spot. I would probably have to join the Protectorate or go full villian. Being nervous was entirely reasonable.

"... What happened?" She was suspicious. That was fair. I did say something had come up and it had obviously radically changed my plans.

"I got in a fight with the Empire. A civilian got caught in the crossfire." I tried not to look at Schneider next to me. "I suspect the PRT aren't going to be too happy with me. They'll force me into the Protectorate if I'm lucky," I said bitterly

"You fought the Empire?"

"Victor and Hookwolf. Armsmaster arrested them so I don't think Kaiser is going to try and make an example out of me. You don't have to worry about that."

"Would Hookwolf? How much did you hurt him? Did you just harass him or was it you and Armsmaster equally?"

"I don't think Hookwolf will care about Armsmaster at all. He didn't show up until Hookwolf was unconscious," I said hesitantly. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing to tell her or not. She was framing it like she was more worried about Hookwolf, and this was definitely bad in that regard, but this did tell her I was strong enough to beat him.

"You beat Hookwolf alone," she said flatly. Unless she didn't believe me.

"I spent most of the fight running away," I explained.

"Well we can come pick you up and discuss it."

"I should mention that Armsmaster is already here and I'm gonna have to go to the hospital or Panacea before I can do much."

"What happened to you and what does Armsmaster want?"

"Victor shot me in the leg. He hasn't said what he wants yet, but he probably wants a statement about what happened." I saw Armsmaster come back inside and I gave him a little wave.

"Capes can usually get away without giving a statement, but you might want to say something anyway to get the story straight with the civilian."

"I did that when I saw him, so I guess you could pick me up now. I'm at 436 7th Street. Maybe if you hurry you'll get to meet Armsmaster," I said with a teasing voice. That would let her know that the hero was here, but wouldn't tip off said hero that I was warning her.

"I'll send someone to pick you up. She will call herself 'Amanda,' okay?"

"Got it." She hung up and I looked to Armsmaster expectantly. I didn't mind telling him a little of what had happened, but I wasn't going to just volunteer up everything.

"What caused the altercation between you, Victor, and Hookwolf?" he asked bluntly.

"They wanted me to join the Empire. I wasn't interested."

"That's good. Do you already have someone to take you to the hospital?"

"Yeah. She should be here in a few minutes."

"Before she gets here there's something we should discuss." That was ominous. Was he going to try and pressure me into the Wards now?

"Who gets the credit for their take down?" Oh. That was good. I was perfectly fine giving him the credit, but it was kind of odd that he was asking considering I had done all the work. "Now what you've done here is fantastic, but the consequences could be dangerous. The Empire would be incentivised to go after you to save face."

"That makes sense," I interrupted him. I was already planning to let the PRT take the credit so I didn't need to be convinced to give up the credit for my own good.

"I'm glad. Does that mean you don't want the credit?"

"Yeah, you can have it. I don't really want Kaiser breathing down my neck." I heard a vehicle of some sort pulling up outside. That could be the PRT or Faultline. "Do you know if that's the PRT or my ride?" I asked Armsmaster.

"The PRT shouldn't be here for another two minutes. I would expect it to be your ride."

"Since I still probably shouldn't walk, do you think you could help me out there?"

"I will do that. Let me make sure it's them first." At my nod he went out to check. Several seconds later he and a teenage girl I didn't know wearing a domino came in. She had curly brown hair and even through the mask I could tell she had almost as much freckles as face, though I wasn't one to talk.

"Hey, Aceso. It's me Amanda!" Her enthusiasm was a little odd. Maybe she was trying to distance herself from her identity.

"Hello Amanda." I turned to look at the Protectorate leader. "Do you want to carry me or something or should I hop to her car?" He glanced at "Amanda" then scooped me up in a bridal carry. I imagined that most teenage girls dreamed about being in this position. I unfortunately was less straight than Legend's laser beams and only found it moderately embarrassing.

My transportation walked out the front door, Faultline's envoy, trailing behind us. Outside I saw two large blobs of containment foam where I had left Victor and Hookwolf. The thought of them waking up trapped like that made me chuckle. In the middle of the street was a grey SUV, presumably Faultline's car.

We walked towards it and my driver scampered over to the back door and hurriedly opened it. Armsmaster put me in and buckled me up. I considered objecting that I wasn't a child and had use of my arms, but I didn't really care enough to do so. He closed the door and "Amanda" got in the driver's seat.

When she closed the door, and Armsmaster had left to begin securing Hookwolf and Victor for transport, she started talking to me.

"Do you want to go to the hospital or do you have some other arrangement?" She lost some of that pep, but remained fairly cheerful.

"Both, I have another arrangement _at_ the hospital. I know Panacea."

"Oh? I guess that makes sense; you have a lot in common." My lips quirked at that.

"You have no idea." I didn't think past me would be too happy to make a new friend only for them to immediately ask her to heal them, but I hadn't exactly planned this and I figured it was only polite to call ahead. "I'm gonna call her now and let her know I'm coming, if that's okay?"

"Sure go for it." I saw her nodding her head from the back seat.

As I dialed and waited for her to pick up, I considered how to minimize the fallout of this. I couldn't pay her the way I would get paid considering she wasn't old enough to be a rogue and a hundred thousand dollars was too big to be ignored by the government and I felt giving her twenty bucks or something was kind of insulting. I would just offer her a favor or something.

"Hi, Jade. What's up?"

"I feel really guilty for asking this, but I kinda… got shot?"

"HOW DID YOU GET SHOT?" I winced. She dealt with people getting shot everyday. Why was this such a big deal? My driver giggled. I glared at the back of her head, then my eyes flicked to the rear view mirror and our eyes met. The corners of her eyes crinkled and I could feel her grin. I thought that was a Miss Militia thing. This girl's like sixteen, she shouldn't even have eye crinkles.

"The Empire wanted me to join and when I refused they got pushy."

"God fucking damn it. Where are you?" I didn't really expect this level of vitriol, but I didn't think she's mad at me.

"I'm on my way to the hospital."

"You'll fucking owe me for this. Are you coming in your civian ID or as Aceso?" she growled out. Maybe she was a little mad at me.

"Aceso. I definitely appreciate it." And I was glad I wouldn't have to argue with her into healing me. I was confident I could, but not without alienating her.

"I'll tell them to direct me to you when you get here. Don't die in the meantime."

"Okay. Thank you." She hung up.

"So," a still damnably cheerful voice said. "She sounds fun."

"She is, when I'm not giving her even more work."

"Yeah, I can imagine she's pretty busy." She sounded sympathetic, which grated on me. She could not imagine how busy I had been, but I knew that my reaction was dumb. She was being nice and who knows maybe she did have an idea. Capes tended to lead crazy lives...

Assuming "Amanda" _was _a cape. She was wearing a mask and had been sent by Faultline, which did imply she had powers, but certainly didn't prove it. If she was part of Faultline's Crew and not just hired help there were only a few possibilities. She wasn't a Case 53 or a dude so she wasn't Newter or Gregor, too young to be Faultline herself, Labyrinth wasn't a good choice for this sort of job. Spitfire was a possibility. I wasn't sure if Shamrock had joined yet.

"Yeah, and _she_ doesn't even get paid," I sympathised.

"That was always my problem with being a hero. How are you supposed to make any money?" she grumbled.

I saw the hospital up ahead. My driver followed the red highlighted signs to the ER.

"Do you want me to drop you off right outside the ER doors or should I park and help you walk there?"

"You can just drop me off in front of the doors." I figured I should walk as little as possible.

She stopped and I opened the door and got out. I tried to avoid putting pressure on my leg and I ended up moving in an intentional limp since it didn't actually hurt. I told the receptionist that I had a gunshot wound and had already been treated by Armsmaster. After learning my name they ferried me to their resident cape.

"So," she paused, "What the fuck." Had I really used to be this bitchy? While I responded she grabbed my hand and began healing me.

"The Empire sent Victor and Hookwolf to recruit me while I was healing someone and didn't take kindly to me rejecting their offer." She nodded, but was oddly quiet.

"Where'd you get those scars on your arm?" She gestured to my brachium. I had a few faint crescents on my upper right arm from a fight Vicky and I had gotten into when we were younger.

Oh shit. It hadn't even occurred to me that she might notice the similarities between us and be suspicious. I can see the same scars on her arm. Quick, something reasonable, anything. Broken plate cut me? No, that wouldn't result in this kind of scar.

Amy was staring at me intensely. And holding my hand. I couldn't lie to her while she was still using her power on me. Aside from that, she could see my heart rate, which just spiked. I was being very suspicious.

I needed time to think and come up with a good explanation. Maybe it would be the truth, but I wanted time to frame it and right now I needed to talk to Faultline.

"I— I don't… I'll talk to you later. I have a meeting now." I pulled my hand free and headed towards the parking lot where Spitfire, or whomever, was.

I saw "Amanda" talking with the receptionist. I walked up to them and tried not to look like I was having a panic attack.

"Done already? That was fast," Spitfire commented.

"Panacea does good work." I was not looking forward to talking with her. Just don't think about it.

"You ready to go?"

"Yeah." Was that a little brusque? Not really, and I was always unfriendly, so that was nothing new. Should I be though? This was probably a future teammate of mine I should build bridges.

"So what do you like to do?" I asked as we walked back to her van. She looked at me, then glanced away and a bit of red colored her cheeks.

"I uh. Sometimes I like knitting." Show interest. I could also buy her knitting supplies.

"Oh? What kind of things do you knit?"

"Just kind of whatever. I make a lot of scarves since they're simple. I've made a couple of shirts that turned out okay too." Should I ask for a scarf? Is that appreciative or needy? Should I make her something instead? I didn't know how to knit. I could make her something with my power, but I didn't know if that would interest her. Silkworms! I could make modified silkworms to make her thread. Would that be gross though? Maybe I should give her thread and just not tell her that I made it. But what kind of thread does she use? I needed to find out. I could just look around in her room when she wasn't around. Unless she didn't live at the Palanquin. Then I needed to break into her house. But what if someone caught me. I didn't want to kill another person for some dumbass reason like that.

No. No. This entire thing was stupid. I was stupid. I could just ask her. Not even that. I didn't need to give her something. That was weird. I didn't even need to be friends with her. We just met. I should just stop talking.

"..."

"So what do you like to do?" Should I just ignore her? I didn't have anything against her and I was going to be working with her soon. I just had that thought three minutes ago and it lead to crazy yandere stalker town. I needed to be reasonable.

In the meantime just— I didn't know, talk about the robot thing.

"I sometimes do tinkery stuff with my powers. I got Panacea to help me make a robot."

"Wow! That's actually really cool. You can make stuff for fights without being limited to it in battle like most tinkers are!" That was really nice, but it wasn't nice enough to make me cry. Why then, was I fighting back tears? My leg didn't even hurt anymore! Hookwolf hadn't even touched me and I sure as hell didn't feel guilty about what I did to them.

Scheider, slumped next to the chair, arms splayed out and chest still, flashed through my mind. He wasn't pale yet, his blood hadn't had a chance to pool in his back. His hand was still warm. He seemed so alive except for being oh so still. I remembered a picture of his wife on a table. Maybe he had kids. They would never see him again, all because of me.

My throat ached. It throbbed behind my eyes. It felt like a migraine except I was drowning. I gasped raggedly.

Spitfire looked at me and a look of panic appeared on her face.

"Er— Are you okay?" she asked haltingly, trying to look at me and the road at the same time.

"I killed someone." My voice was flat. Or maybe it was stunned. I didn't know. I shouldn't feel like this. I've done worse. What I did to Vicky was much worse. I didn't just kill her, I made her life a living hell for years. She was still terrified of me when I fixed her, and even after.

"It's not your fault. You were just defending yourself."

"Not from him." My dad has done worse. I know he had, I'd even seen him kill people in the Birdcage. They had always attacked us though, directly or not. And it wasn't like people in there were innocent. Even Canary had mutilated her boyfriend, even if it had been an accident. "He was supposed to be my patient. And then the Empire showed up and I didn't care enough to not kill him too."

"You killed Victor and Hookwolf?" She sounded concerned now.

"No, I just knocked them out. And what I did to them killed—" My breath hitched and I gasped. I felt hot tears running down my cheeks. "It killed him. He was already sick." I wiped my face violently. I shouldn't be upset. I didn't even care about him.

We pulled into a parking lot and I was about to protest that she didn't need to stop for me, but I noticed that we were at the Palanquin. Of course she didn't stop to comfort me. Why would she? She didn't know me.

She parked then came around to the other side of the car and stood in front of me awkwardly.

"Do you… want a hug?" she trailed off. I didn't know how to feel about that. I didn't really have anything against her, but I didn't like her either. I shrugged.

She slowly reached out and pulled me into her embrace. Almost against my will I felt myself relax. She smelled nice: faintly of roses, honey and smoke. My arms wrapped around her and my head rested itself of her shoulder. I let out a heavy sigh and pulled back.

"Okay, I'm good." I really was. Maybe I should hug people more. I didn't have a lot of close friends right now, but I was working to change that. And not in a crazy way either.

"Are you okay to have a meeting now?" Probably Spitfire said, sounding concerned.

"I'm good, really." I smiled at her and tried not to look too melancholy.

She nodded reluctantly and opened a backdoor into the Palanquin. I followed her up the stairs to a closed door where she told me to wait apologetically. She went inside and I sat on a bench that had been placed there, possibly just for this purpose.

Not long after, Faultline came out and offered her hand to me. I stood up, shook it, and greeted her.

"Hello Faultline. Thank you for considering me for your team." Shit! That was such a weak opening. That's the kind of thing you say after she rejects you. No, no. Calm down. It's not the end of the world, and when I get the job it's not going to be full of power plays. Within our own team at least.

"Hello Aceso. I hear you've had quite the day. Would you like something to drink?"

"Yes please." I had found I liked vodka, though Dad had been nearly offended when I told him I preferred it to his favorite: whiskey. I probably shouldn't drink right before a job interview, but she was offering and I wasn't sure I cared.

She swept her arm toward the door from which she had exited and I obligingly entered first. Her team was nowhere to be found, except for Newter who was sitting at a table doing something on a laptop. He was wearing some nice leather gloves presumably to stop his psychedelic from getting on the keyboard.

"What do you feel like? We've got a pretty wide selection," my host offered.

"Vodka martini?" She walked past me to a leather couch with a blue glass coffee table in front of it and a flatscreen TV behind that. I noticed her giving Newter a small nod as she sat down. She motioned me forward with a pleasant smile.

"Come Aceso. Take a seat." She was being much nicer and less formal than she had been before. I suppose it made sense, but it made her seem duplicitous and false.

I sat beside her and tried not to retreat into myself. I looked around the room and took in the calm ambiance. Newter made my drink quickly and skillfully behind a minibar that was to the left side of the room. I wondered how he knew how to do that. I didn't think Faultline would order him to serve drinks just because. He probably asked her to teach him. He thought it would be fun or would help him with the ladies. I wondered if I should learn bartending.

"So why are you interested in joining now?" Was that meant to be accusatory? Her tone didn't give me that impression, but I wasn't sure. I was probably just freaking out over nothing. I thought I was still feeling a little emotionally unstable.

"I'm worried about the Protectorate. I did… kill someone. So I'm worried they're going to be hounding me to join or something. I did talk with Armsmaster and clear up what happened, but I'm still worried and your team doesn't kill people, so I'm hoping they'll think you're a moderating influence or something and I'm also kind of worried about Hookwolf because he might be mad that I beat him and got him arrested and Victor might be too, but he doesn't seem the type to get really angry and hold grudges, but maybe he is—" I gasped for breath and realized I'd been rambling.

I noticed Newter standing next to me with my drink in one hand and what looked like scotch in the other. I took the martini from him with a murmured thank you.

Faultline slowly nodded and accepted the other glass. "You said before that you didn't think the Empire as a whole would be after you, right? Could you tell me what happened?" I didn't really want to, but this was a chance to explain why I killed someone and to show that I wasn't a risk to have on her team.

I told her what had happened and tried to keep in mind what "Amanda" had said about it not being my fault.

"If you are in a similar situation in the future I need you to warn whomever might be put in danger, particularly someone from our team." I pulled my knees up to my chest and tried to keep my breathing even. "I know you didn't want to tip off Hookwolf, but you can tell bystanders to get out of there well before a physical confrontation develops. We can construct some sort of code for different situations. We'll help you with it." I hurried to nod.

"Yeah, I'll warn you," I promised. I seemed desperate. I felt desperate though, so I guessed it was fitting.

"Then we don't have a problem with you joining our team." I stared at her for a second before I processed what she said and my heart leapt into my throat. Relief flooded through me and I smiled. I wouldn't have to worry about the PRT arresting me or Hookwolf coming after me or whomever else might come after me now that I didn't have the protection afforded to me as Panacea or by my dad.

"Thanks," I looked down and smiled to myself. It was nice to have a team again.

"You want to get to know the team?" The couch shook and I saw a flash of orange as Newter swung an arm around my shoulder.

"What's up? I'm Newter. Glad to have you with us." He had a big goofy grin on his face.

I returned a small smile and shook his hand that wasn't over my shoulder.

"Good to be here. I'm Aceso." Faultline got up, opened the door, and called through it.

"Everyone come meet our new teammate!" I heard some shuffling, then Spitfire burst out, followed by Gregor and Labyrinth. I stood and offered a hand to Gregor. He took it and welcomed me.

"It's a pleasure to have you on our team. I hope you feel at home." His hand was pleasantly cool and slightly softer than normal human flesh. From my power I could tell his entire body was a little gelatinous, excepting his bones and some of his organs. He reminded me of a jellyfish, though his tissue had more structure than that, which was why he could stand on land.

"Hello." Labyrinth said softly. Her eyes flickered away a moment later to look at something only she could see.

Spitfire beamed at me and exclaimed "You joined! We're teammates now!" She laughed and leapt forward to hug me.

Her laughter was infectious and I couldn't help giggling a little with her.

"This _was _the plan, you know. Don't be so surprised," I ribbed her lightly with a small grin. I looked around. Everyone was smiling, even Labyrinth, distracted though she was.

After she calmed down a bit, Spitfire straightened and pulled back. She reached behind her head, undid a seal of somesort, and pulled her mask up over her head. Revealed was a mop of brown hair above a familiar face splattered with freckles. She grinned.

"Hi. I'm Emily."

"A much nicer name than Amanda." I complemented. I returned her smile and reached up to remove my own mask. "And I'm Jade."

Faultline shifted and pulled off her helmet to uncover her civilian identity. She had a very pointed nose, sharp cheekbones and piercing brown eyes. "My name is Melanie."

Labyrinth finished off by introducing herself as Elle.

It occured to me that I hadn't told them the truth about my power. That might have been useful for getting me on the team, but I hadn't been sure that I wanted to tell them before I joined. Oh well, I could just do it now.

"I should also mention I can do a few more things with my power than I let on," I said, glancing at Melanie.

"I'm not surprised." She nodded. "Most capes keep something close to the chest."

"I said I could only do small chemical things to animals. That's just a lie. I could grow back limbs in a couple minutes given enough material to work with."

"Wait! So does that mean you actually can cure us?" Newter chimed in from behind me on the couch. I moved out from between him and Gregor so that I could address both at once.

"Not really." They had a similar reaction to the last time I turned them down: resignation and disappointment. I continued, "There is something I can do by changing your Corona Pollentia, but that's almost certainly a bad idea. It would change your powers in weird and unpredictable ways _and_ probably cause some sort of catastrophic brain damage." I hesitated for a moment. Should I mention what happened to Weaver? I probably should.

"The last person that asked me to change their powers went insane in a few hours." My voice lowered and I looked away. I didn't feel guilty, not quite, not anymore. Regretful was a better word. I didn't particularly like Skitter, but I think she wanted to help people in her own fucked up way. I wish that hadn't happened to her, but I didn't think it was my fault. Dad had convinced me of that, though Tattletale had ripped me apart pretty good after it became clear that I couldn't fix Skitter again.

"So you can heal any injury, illness, or birth defect quickly and with few resources. As well as being able to create offensive biological weapons," Melanie said. That sounded bad. I looked at her and was about to defend myself before she continued. "You sound like a strictly better Panacea." At that I came up short. That was kind of… true, but not entirely.

"In... some ways."

"How is her power different from yours?" Emily questioned innocently. When I didn't immediately answer she backtracked hurriedly. "As far as you know! I don't expect you to know everything about her power. And you don't have to answer if you don't want to!" Her contrite and worried expression was pretty adorable. I didn't want to tell them about the whole time travel thing, but I felt I should mention how we shared a power.

I sighed and smiled a little. "I'd rather not go into it too much, but I do know that Panacea and I have exactly the same power."

Newter and Emily appeared to only barely withhold their exclamations, while Gregor was staring at me a touch more intently. I realized what he was looking at. The only times two people have the same power are when they're identical twins, like with Menja and Fenja. What Amy looked like was public and now he could compare me to her. And of course we did look _very_ similar. I figured I would just let that misunderstanding lie. It was close enough to the truth and explaining would be complicated.

I imagined that Newter was usually the one to fill awkward silences, but in this case Melanie stepped in and changed the subject. "Last time we met you offered to see if normal body modifications would work on case 53s." Newter perked up at this.

"Yeah! Could you give me a couple of extra fingers?"

I couldn't help a startled snort from escaping me. No one had ever been as gung-ho and eager as that for anything other than normal healing. I was also surprised that he wanted to be even less human. I would think he would be desperate to be normal. Maybe he just wanted control of his body and this was his way of exercising that. Something to think about.

"Sure. I can do that." I grinned at him. "So first, an extra finger on each hand?" He nodded.

"Just to make sure, you can undo this if it doesn't revert on its own?" Melanie interjected.

"Of course." Then I remembered Vicky and how easy it was to forget what how everything was set up before. "I'll take pictures before I start so I know what it's like at the start too."

I turned back to Newter and resumed my questioning. "How can I touch you in a way that won't trip me out?"

"Be right back." he said before running off.

"He has some wet wipes to clean off his hands for stuff like this." Emily mentioned after a second.

Newter came rushing back in with wet wipes as Emily said. He sat down and rolled up one of his sleeves. "Your power works from anywhere, right? You can use my elbow?"

"Yeah, that's fine," I agreed.

"I can control how much I produce to a point, but I always make some, even if I try not to. My elbow does it the least and I'll clean that off too." Right before he was about to grab a wipe he hesitated. "Photos first, right?"

"Yes." I pulled out my phone and took a photo of the back of his splayed out hand. "Other side, please." He flipped his hand over and I took a photo of his palm also.

"I'll try and get it all off, but if it still affects you or starts affecting you in the middle we can just stop and wait for it to wear off. That should only be like a minute. Okay?" I didn't know Newter had such good leadership skills. He wasn't fantastic, but he knew how to take charge if he wanted to. And no one tried to keep him from doing so.

He thoroughly wiped off his arm and then held it out to me. I placed a finger on it and awareness flooded through me. His biology was surprisingly similar to an ordinary human's. His tail was a natural continuation of the human coccyx. His fingers and toes were more padded and stickier, though not nearly enough to allow him to climb walls the way he could. His sweat glands were also all much bigger than they normally were in humans. They also contained some sort of chemical, his psychedelic, though it wasn't coming from anywhere. It just appeared there magically.

That was a recurring theme to case 53s I had found. It almost looked like their powers were purely biological in nature, but it was never the case. Their passengers stepped in at the last moment and made everything work.

I had a job to do though and couldn't keep gawking forever. I started by creating a few more carpals and two metacarpals in his palms for his new fingers to attach to. I also formed tendons and muscles attached to them. Visibly this looked like two large bulges on the side of his hands. Then I finally started creating the phalanges. Now that he had proper fingers I had to make sure the skin was uniform across his hands. I copied the padding and tiny hairs that allowed him to stick to walls, as well as the modified sweat glands.

The trickiest part was next: nerves. I had incorporated them into the new fingers, but I also had to connect them through the arms to the spinal cord and then the brain. The spinal cord was relatively easy, but the brain I tried to change as minimally as possible. I could develop the connections more thoroughly, but that risked changing memories and maybe how his brain connected to the rest of his hands. I didn't do that. He would have to learn to use them the normal way: with some minor physical therapy.

I refocused on what I was actually seeing with my eyes and realized I had forgotten the fingernails. That was embarrassing. I couldn't see them directly with my power, but I could see the effect they had on the tissue under them. I quickly forced them to start growing thousands of times faster than they normally did and soon I was done.

"Okay. How's that? Feel okay? You probably can't move them independently yet." He slowly made a fist with one hand. At first his new finger didn't move, but at about the halfway point it started to follow the other fingers. It was rather similar to how trying to move your middle or pinky finger without moving the ones next to it is difficult.

"Yeah. It feels okay." He poked new finger on his right hand with one of his old fingers, testing if he recieved sensation from it correctly. I let him experiment for a few moments.

"There's a few exercises you should do to get better control of them." He looked up to me at this. "First, try to close your entire hand, including your new finger like you were before to build muscle memory. Second, use your other hand to bend your finger, while trying to move it without your other fingers on that hand." I demonstrated, bending and unbending my pinky with my other hand. My ring finger bent too. "If a couple of your other fingers bend too, that's okay. Do that for a couple weeks. You should be able to get some independent motion." I smiled, remembering that I would be around him and this wasn't the one and done deal I was used to. "If you don't, ask me."

He grinned and nodded at me. "Got it."

Emily leaned over him to get a close look. "Wow, Newter. You're brave." Her eyebrows shot up in panic once again. Her head whipped toward me. "Not that he shouldn't trust you it's just—"

I cut her off. "Yeah, I'm impressed too." I returned Newter's grin. "Most people are a bit more hesitant about this kind of thing."

His grin lessened a bit and I wanted to inquire further, but I did have _some_ tact. "Ah, well. It should give me better dexterity and I can tag people in fights a bit better." I nodded politely.

I wasn't sure what else to say so I turned to Melanie and asked, "Are we doing any jobs soon or is there anything else I should know? Kind of general policies for how this team works?"

Melanie gained a sort of satisfied look. I think she liked that question. "We don't have any jobs planned right now, but we'll probably get something in the next week. As for policies, we try really hard to avoid killing people." I looked down. "Ah ah ah!" she stopped me, holding up a finger. "We already covered this, you're fine. I'm just going over everything. We follow what are called the unwritten rules: don't go after people in their civilian identities, don't kill other capes, no sexual assault of any kind. Other capes also tend to follow these rules, because if they don't everyone else will band together to put them down. We follow those and we try to avoid causing too much trouble in Brockton Bay. We don't want the authorities coming after us here."

"That's it for policies, but we do have a bit of a more long term goal than just make a lot of money. We're looking into where case 53s come from." I knew that. It was the one thing that made me pretty uncomfortable. I knew where case 53s came from. I was there when the Alexandria clone Echidna had made outed Cauldron, but if I told them that I didn't think any of us would live to see tomorrow.

I lay in my bed and stared at where the ceiling met the walls. It was sharp. That was pretty normal in houses. Rooms usually had corners and creases, but with my house being made of a living tree it looked weird and unnatural.

I used the contact I had with my bed to connect to the room and smooth out all the edges and creases, making it a little bubble-like. I kept the connection between the floor and the walls relatively sharp. I didn't want to have weird slopes in my house, but I smoothed the wall corners and made the rest of the walls more concave so that my house was more like a cylinder than a rectangular prism. I also curved up the ceiling to make it more hemispherical and slightly reminiscent of the observatories I had seen.

Now the bioluminescent lights were too far away so I made them come down on thin stalks and hang from the ceiling and fill the room with their soft blue glow.

I layed there, exhausted, for a moment and couldn't think of anything else to distract myself with. I had to deal with Amy. Other Amy. I rolled over onto my stomach, pressed my face into my pillow and groaned. I didn't want to think about this. I had to anyway.

The major problem I had was that I had already given myself away. I had panicked when she had become suspicious and now any answer I gave that wasn't sufficiently bad for me would be known to be false.

Telling the truth would certainly solve that problem, but it had the drawback of being really fucking creepy. I didn't think I would like the idea of me from the future showing up and stealing my life, particularly Vicky. That was not entirely an unreasonable fear. I would like to have Vicky all to myself, even if I realized how bad an idea that was for a multitude of reasons.

If Amy told anyone about me it would also be really bad. If Carol found out she would freak out about having a second version of me running around and Sarah or Vicky would only be marginally better. They would want me to join New Wave and I was definitely happier with Faultline's Crew.

I couldn't imagine either of them, but especially Vicky, reacting well to me refusing to go back to New Wave in favor of Faultline.

I might be able to convince them on the basis of it making Amy uncomfortable, but I wasn't sure how considerate they would be of her feelings.

Unfortunately I was lacking good alternatives. Not replying to Amy wasn't really an option. She would probably freak out and call the Protectorate to let them know that I was suspicious and possibly impersonating her.

I was going to have to tell her the truth. My goal was to find a good way to present it, then.

I would need some way to calm her down. I could tell some sort of joke to cut the tension. I could let her use her power on me to see that I was telling the truth. When she realized that I could use my power on her though that would backfire. I could start off by showing my unique knowledge, but that had the downside of outing her secrets and would be guaranteed to freak her out.

I could try and explain it to her by saying I was from the future as a metaphor and then telling her it was literally true. That was a little silly, but it didn't have any real problems.

I wasn't sure it solved that many either. The real problem wasn't her jumping to conclusions, but her being freaked out by the truth.

Being able to commiserate with her about her problems might work, but I didn't have most of them any more, so that might just make her envious or jealous in the case of Vicky. I could try and offer solutions, like getting away from New Wave, but I wasn't sure she would appreciate it.

I might be able to portray myself as sad and harmless. To a degree I was. I missed dad and seeing him again seemed hopeless. I didn't want to steal her life either. It sucked. That might be enough to calm her down. Though it might offend her too for some reason. It would offend me.

I opened my phone and called Amy. She picked up on the second ring.


	6. Chapter 6

**Back**

Chapter 6

"Jade." Amy sounded cautious and a little afraid.

"Amy. I finished what I needed to do and I can explain what's going on now. Is there somewhere you would like to meet up?"

She hesitated for a moment, then responded, "Meet me at the boat graveyard." Then she hung up.

That made sense as a location. It was private, away from her family, and not somewhere under my control. I didn't think we were likely to be interrupted either.

I didn't like how she seemed afraid of me. I supposed it made sense. The last time she saw me I was keeping suspicious secrets from her. Hopefully she would calm down after I explained the truth to her.

I walked down to the nearest bus stop and caught the #14 to the docks. Public transportation wasn't the safest— a lot of Merchants used it, but there weren't a ton of reasons to stab someone on a bus. I could knock them out with a touch if they tried anyway. It was still better than when everything shut down after Leviathan hit. I really needed a car.

I stood on the beach and looked out at the ships. Some held up surprisingly well and had little rust on them. They almost looked seaworthy. Others were decaying and falling apart, filled with rust and holes. I wondered what the difference was. Paint or material? I didn't really care. They just looked depressing. I used to think they looked cool, like giant playgrounds, but that childish glee had been crushed over the years. Also, I hated the ocean now. Leviathan ruined it for me. I was just cheery right now wasn't I?

I thought about how Amy might react. She might not believe me. That would be a bad outcome. I could offer to let her play polygraph, but if she thought I was wrong or delusional there wasn't a lot I could do. She could also just be really creeped out by the idea of a copy of her walking around. There was even less I could do about that.

That wasn't too likely though. It would probably work out. That thought made me feel better. I let out a little sigh and smiled towards the sun setting over the bay.

"Hey," Amy called out from behind me. I turned and froze when I saw Vicky accompanying her with a scowl.

"Uhh, hi," I stuttered. "I'm uh, not sure Victoria should hear this." I shrank into myself a little and tried not to look at Vicky.

Amy narrowed her eyes. "Anything you can say to me you can say to her." I folded up even more and desperately tried to think of a way to get rid of our sister.

I had no ideas. Vicky looked like she was more likely to punch me than give us privacy and Amy was almost clinging to her with a possessive, distrustful frown.

I haltingly began to use my plan of explaining my presence while pretending it was all hypothetical. "Okay, so basically, imagine that in the future someone is fighting a case 53 with time powers and they do something and the person ends up back in time?" Both girls stared at me with raised eyebrows as I hunched over, trying to hide.

"Go on," the healer said.

"And uh, that person is also around in the past so there's two of them now. And the one from the future doesn't really know anyone cause no one else came with them so they try to reestablish their old connections...?" I trailed off.

They stared blankly at me for a long moment. "Thaaat sounds like bullshit," Vicky drawled out.

I scowled with indignation. "Oh, really? Then how do I know about all the people you've hurt then guilted us into healing for you?"

Their eyes widened and Vicky took a defensive stance, getting ready to fight me.

"Chill out. I have no reason to tell anyone and if I did I would have already done it." I rolled my eyes.

Amy glared at me. "You know this really isn't a good way to get us to trust you, right?"

"We can be rather abrasive." My gaze softened and I met my twin's stare. "Sorry." Amy held her glare steady for a few seconds.

"And then you insult me." She let out a breath and relaxed into a sort of annoyed exasperation. Victoria, for the first time in her life, took her cue from her sister and settled down from "about to fight you" to merely "hostile."

"Okay, so you claim to be me from the future, right? Why should we believe that? A good thinker could find out everything you've shown us so far." Amy said.

"There's almost nothing a good thinker couldn't find out. I could be a stranger 10 that copies memories, appearance, and powers. Being or working with a precog would also allow me to tell you about the future, so there's no way for you to be absolutely certain, but if I had those kind of resources why the hell would I spend them doing this?" I finished with a huff of irritation.

"I thought your powers didn't work on animals as strongly as plants." Vicky commented.

"I kinda wanted to avoid this situation so I tried to make my powers seem different from hers."

"Tell me about the future then. Almost no precogs are good enough for this kind of thing so I can verify what you say later." Amy looked smug at her suggestion.

"You know, most of what I can tell you will take weeks or months to happen. I'm going to try and change some of it too, the ABB bombings were random and unnecessary."

"Give a summary for now then. I'm curious," she said belligerently.

I took a deep breath. I obviously couldn't tell them everything, but there was plenty I could. Bakuda, Leviathan, The Nine, and Skitter were all fair game.

"Pretty soon, if not already, Lung will get a bomb tinker," I started. "After that Armsmaster takes down Lung which leads to Bakuda bombing parts of the city in an attempt to get Lung back. A while after that Leviathan arrives and fucks everything." I remembered all the blood and broken bodies I had to fix, the destroyed buildings, and the sinkhole that opened up down town.

"That draws The Nine here and they fuck up our life completely. I wasn't really in the game any more after that, so I'm not super aware of what happened, but there was a pretty serious scandal about the Protectorate, specifically the Triumvirate. Quite a while after that everything goes to shit," I finished with a sigh.

Victoria and Amy stared at me with wide eyes.

"You seem to have left out some details," Amy said, shakily.

"There was also a bank robbery and one of the thinkers screwed with my head. Everyone in the Empire was outed after the ABB thing and the Empire broke up, but they just formed a couple new groups, so it didn't change that much."

"I meant more about The Nine. And Leviathan."

"I'm not sure how much there is to say about Leviathan. It came here in mid-May and wrecked everything, opened a big sinkhole downtown. A bunch of people died: Eric, Neil, Dean, Carlos, others I didn't know as well. Armsmaster broke the truce and tried to get some villains killed." This was exhausting. Remembering my cousin and uncle dying was upsetting and I hadn't even gotten to The Nine yet.

Victoria and Amy stiffened. I could tell they both wanted to disagree, but they knew how dangerous Endbringers were.

"How— how did Eric and Neil die?" Amy seemed to be having the same shortness of breath that I so often had.

"Neil got punched through a wall and then crushed." I felt tears pricking at my eyes. Sarah's family was always nice and tended to be more sympathetic than anyone I had lived with. We weren't as close as you might expect a family hero team to be, but they did offer comfort when Carol was sorely lacking and Mark forgot to take his meds. "We didn't know exactly what happened to Eric. He probably got hit then drowned. That fits with—" my breath hitched and I failed at keeping the bloody corpse of my cousin out of my head. "the condition his body was in."

They stared at me. I wished it was raining. Then I could explain away the tears on my face.

"Do you... need a minute?" Amy asked uncertainly.

I took a deep breath and while I calmed myself down Victoria strode up to me and engulfed me in her arms. My breath caught and I realized I hadn't touched Vicky since I fixed her after Golden Morning. I also realized my face was pressed against her chest. My eyes widened and I started to flush. Thank God she wasn't wearing one of her shirts with a boob window. I was already returning her hug and I wasn't sure how to respond now. I wanted to pull her closer, but that would be weird. Shoving her away would be worse, so I stayed there. Awkwardly.

Eventually she pulled away and I let her. When Amy got a clear look at my face her eyes narrowed in suspicion. She realized what I felt and my face reddened further.

Distraction! "So, uh, what… else do you want to talk about?" I said, looking staunchly at Victoria.

"Can we have a minute to talk alone?" my twin asked her sister. She blinked and looked between us.

"Sure. I'll go… explore the boats or something." She floated over the ocean and dipped down into the water by one of the sunken boats. Scuba diving was the MOST bullshit use of her power ever. She couldn't breathe, but she could fly through the water incredibly quickly and didn't have to worry about the bends because her force field kept her in a pressurized bubble of air if she willed it to. It could also keep her dry if she wanted.

"You're still in love with her," Amy stated. I sighed.

"I don't know about 'in love' anymore. Things went badly, really badly, and I haven't seriously interacted with her in years." Amy stiffened and looked shocked. "I'm still attracted to her and she's my sister so I love her, but I don't think I'm _in love_ with her."

"What did you do?" That brought me up short.

"It wasn't my fault!" It was. "It was The Nine!" I tried to reign myself back. "Bonesaw nominated me to join their little murder clique and part of her test was to get me to break my rules, which she did by injecting acid into Mark's brain. It worked and it fucked me up. Then later when I was with Vicky I lost control for a second and… made it possible for her to return my affections." Shame leaked into my voice. "Then Crawler got to her and I fucked up healing her, badly. I couldn't remember how she looked before and she ended up not— not having a functioning body." I always hated telling this story. I almost never did. It was so stupid. It would have been easy to make a half decent body, even if it didn't really look like hers.

"Jesus." She looked shell-shocked. "I can't imagine that. What did people do?"

"Most people had other things to deal with and I was The Infinitely Valuable Panacea." My tone was acidic enough that I was surprised I couldn't hear the ground sizzling. Apparently Amy agreed as she stepped back. "I felt guilty," I said, calming down. "Guilty enough I got myself sent to the Birdcage. I met our dad there. He's actually really great." I let out a small grin at the only bright spot of this entire conversation. "That's also when I got my tattoos." I motioned at the small birdcage on my right shoulder.

Amy was still staring at me, wide eyed. It was a lot to process. I knew.

I was surprised I was crying less over this than over Eric and Neil dying. I had thought about this a lot more, so I was used to thinking about it, I guessed.

"You came here from the Birdcage?" Amy blurted out. I blinked. I hadn't thought about that.

"Err— no. I got let out. Everyone did actually."

"Let out? There's no way out of the Birdcage." I wasn't so sure of that, even without Doormaker. Ciara, the Fairy Queen, never did seem too interested in leaving, but she'd hinted that she could whenever she wanted. Maybe that wasn't true, but it was definitely possible given that Doormaker's portals existed within the scope of parahuman ability.

"There's a cape that can make portals from inside to outside."

"Then why haven't they escaped already?" Her brow furrowed.

"They're not a prisoner. They actually— well, um. They work for the government." I did **not** want to get into Cauldron right now. The worries that Contessa might kill me— or her— were just as valid as when I was talking with Faultline's Crew.

"Wait, why would the _government_ let everyone out of the Birdcage?" Her tone was incredulous.

"Remember how I said everything got really bad after the PRT scandal?"

"Kinda?" she said unconvincingly. There was a splash and both Amy and I looked out over the water to see Vicky coming up for air, looking like an angel or siren, before she dived back down into the ocean. I returned my attention to Amy.

"The Protectorate didn't have enough powerhouses to deal with it. They needed all the help they could get. It was like a bigger Endbringer truce. Inmates were released if people thought they could be trusted to fight against the end of the world."

"That seems a little dramatic."

"Not more than deserved. It really was the apocalypse."

"What happen— you know what?" She snapped out of her reverie. "I want Vicky here for this conversation, so is there anything else personal we need to talk about before she comes back?" I considered that for a moment. She needed to deal with her passenger fucking with her head.

"Yes, we need to talk about your powers. Powers want to be used. They crave conflict and you don't give them that. That's part of why you're miserable. You don't need to get in fights right away, but you do need to do something other than healing with your powers. That's why I was trying to get you to help me with the plant robot. It should satisfy your power a little bit, enough that they should stop trying to punish you for not using them 'good enough.'"

"I don't— What do you mean powers want to be used?" I was starting to get used to the almost perpetually overwhelmed look on her face.

"Powers are kind of semi-sapient. They're trying to learn from you and they're not learning anything from repeatedly healing people."

"How do you know all this?" She almost seemed frustrated at me.

"A lot of information came out after the apocalypse. I also happened to work closely with one of the foremost experts on powers." As fucked up as Riley was, she was interesting to talk to.

Amy was quiet for a moment, seemingly lost in thought, then came back to herself. She turned to the boat that Vicky had been exploring and bellowed at her to come back.

Vicky did not surface in an eruption from the bay with a majestic spray of water glittering in the sunset. Instead there was silence aside from the gentle lapping of the waves and faint echo of Amy's shout.

I was struck by the idea of going in after our sister. I could grow a makeshift filter out of a fish's gills pretty quickly and surprising her might be fun.

"Wanna make some gills and chase after Vicky?" I grinned at Amy. That coaxed a startled laugh out of her.

"How would we do that?" she questioned with a bemused smirk.

"Grab a fish and some kelp? Seems pretty straight forward." I answered matter of factly. She looked at me. I realized that the whole 'using powers to do things other than heal people' thing was new to her. Or maybe she didn't want to hurt the nice fishys.

I trotted over to the water and waded into it. It would be annoying to be soaked after this, but it would give me an excuse to invent a biotech dryer. Fish might be a little difficult to find, but worms and bugs in the mud weren't. I used them to start secreting mating hormones. I didn't know exactly what hormones fish used, but I figured a big cocktail would at least attract something.

I also grabbed some seaweed that was floating around. I needed a blueprint of gills from an actual fish before I could start forming them, but I could begin making it easier to use the kelp by changing it into animal cells, converting chloroplasts to mitochondria and the like.

For a split second my power showed me the biological layout of a krill but I dismissed it, as I did the other millions of bugs, bacteria, and other organisms I encountered on a daily basis. Then it occured to me. Did krill have gills? I thought I saw them when my power showed me its body. I walked farther into the bay, dragging my hands through the water in an effort to find more of the little creatures. Soon I found another and caught it. It did indeed have gills.

It would be a little tricky to extract the oxygen from the water into my lungs. It wouldn't diffuse into the air, because oxygen was a bitch like that, so I couldn't make a simple filter. I could however, synthesize fluorocarbon compounds, by taking the fluorine from the water and the carbon from the kelp I had collected. The fluorocarbons would allow oxygen to diffuse into them. I formed a little organism out of the kelp. It was no bigger than my fist, greenish brown, small and slightly squishy. My kelp creation produced breathable fluorocarbon liquid. I used the kelp that I hadn't turned into a fluorocarbon factory to enlarge the gills of the krill to be able to filter enough oxygen for a relatively small adult human like me. I then attached the kelp ball to the gills so they could work together.

I turned around to see if Amy was following and she was. She hesitantly looked at me from right past the shoreline, where she was standing knee deep in water.

"You got a krill or something to make gills with?" I questioned. I doubted it. She didn't seem to be doing much, just following me.

"I'm uh… I'm not really sure what I'm…" She trailed off.

I waded back over to her and held out my large set of gills and some seaweed. They were huge. Maybe three feet long and would probably look like whiskers when I was wearing them.

"I'm making some gills to diffuse oxygen into a liquid that I'll be able to breathe. Try making something like them," I commanded her. I didn't want to be too pushy, but I figured she would be resistant to using her powers for something her passenger would be satisfied with. The Florobot, which I had just decided was an amazing name for the robot we had made the day before, was a good start, but much less drastic than something that did life support by filling your lungs with liquid.

She complied.

"On an entirely unrelated note, what do you think of "Florobot" for the name of the plant robot?" She looked startled by this, but quickly shifted to contemplating it, then announced her opinion with a definitive "Yes." She returned to examining the gills.

She turned to the kelp ball, "This is meant to make a liquid for us to breathe, right?" She squinted at the kelp ball as she held it up to her face.

"Yeah, you have to hold it under the water though and the fluorocarbon will just pour out into the water if it doesn't go into your mouth."

"It's gonna be really uncomfortable to breathe in a liquid."

"I was thinking I would make a tube go down my trachea. It will still be uncomfortable, but I won't feel like I'm drowning as much."

A bulbous tumor-like thing formed on the bottom of her set of gills.

"The gills need a way to hold the liquid or when it goes into my lungs there won't be enough to breathe."

I thought about that for a moment. I would need to be wearing the gills for a time, while my head was underwater and there wouldn't be enough of the fluorocarbon for the gills to do their job. That sounded like drowning, which would be bad. I copied her tumor onto my gills.

I held the gills underwater so they would be able to start synthesising the fluorocarbon. After a minute I judged the pocket was full enough that I would be able to breathe.

"Okay, I'm going under," I said to Amy, attempting to sound appropriately dramatic. I walked out deeper into the water, put the gills in my mouth, and extended a tube down my throat. It was incredibly uncomfortable. I tried to relax and open my airway.

I pumped the chemical into my lungs, ducked under the water, and swam out to where I saw Vicky.

The water wasn't the clearest, so I couldn't see much immediately, but soon a sunken ship came into view. It wasn't the classic wooden ship that would have been used in the 1800s. It was metal, though it was covered in greenish brown mossy gunk. The ship was long and surprisingly upright. It hadn't fallen over because it was resting against a large stone outcropping. I thought it was close to where Vicky dove into the water, so I swam down towards it. On the deck I saw Vicky punching a shark whose head appeared to be caved in, but hadn't quite stopped moving yet. The entire scene was super creepy in the dark.

I swam in front of her and waved. She looked up at me and spoke, pointing at the animal she had killed. Bubbles poured out of her mouth and I heard through the water "A ark act me," which I took to mean: "A shark attacked me!"

Amy appeared above us and descended awkwardly using the breaststroke.

Vicky looked at me and raised a finger. She then rocketed up to the surface, creating a vacuum which pulled me into her wake and buffeted me a bit. The hell Vicky? After I recovered she came plunging back down and grabbed her sister. I figured she needed to get a breath. When we were all together on the deck of the sunken ship Vicky looked between us questioningly and put her fingers to her face and pulled them apart, miming whiskers.

I mimed back breathing, by putting my hand above my chest and raising and lowering it.

She nodded and gestured for us to follow her as she opened a door on the ship and floated inside. Amy followed after her, grabbing the sides of the doorway to propel herself faster. I copied her and inside was a hallway though I could barely see.

I made the same kind of bioluminescent bulb on the front of my gills as I had used for lights in my treehouse. It cast a blue glow down the corridor, which gave it an eerie haunted vibe.

At the end of the corridor was what appeared to be a control room. There was a hole in the ceiling that let light through, which is presumably how Vicky was able to get a look around.

I modified my newly bioluminescent gills to have an off switch.

Vicky took a seat in one of the command chairs and tried, rather successfully, to make herself look regal. I countered by floating upside down in front of her, almost sitting on the ceiling. She sometimes did that to show off her flying.

Amy joined me and together we looked like bitchy older sisters showing off our powers to our younger sibling. It was a fun role reversal.

As fun as this was I wanted to finish up the conversation with Vicky at _some_ point. I gestured between the three of us and mimed talking by opening and closing my hand like a mouth, then I pointed upward.

Vicky nodded understandingly, then shot up through the hole in the ceiling and in doing so ripped it open wider.

Now that the hole was wide enough for a person to fit through, I supposed I could follow her. I swam up, being careful not to cut myself on the jagged edges. I saw the shark's body with a cloud of blood floating above it. I felt bad for it, even if it had attacked Vicky. I did wonder if it actually had though and Vicky wasn't just freaking out and killing innocent animals over nothing.

I made my way back to the shore where Vicky was waiting, Amy behind me.

Coughing all the liquid out of my lungs sounded like hell, so I reversed the pump that had originally put it into my lungs and pumped it out onto the sand. Amy rapidly stepped away from the pool of fluid. She then looked at me and copied me, sending even more fluorocarbon onto the sand.

After we had finished I looked at Vicky and asked the question that had been on my mind for a while.

"Okay, what happened with the shark?"

"It was crazy!" Vicky became animated at this and started waving her arms around in a way that didn't communicate anything. "I flew down into the water and found that ship and was looking around when it came out of nowhere and it was about to bite me so I punched it and it started thrashing so I punched it some more!" Vicky rambling seemed to indicate that the shark had tried to bite her, but I wasn't convinced yet.

"What do you mean it was about to bite you!?" I didn't want her to feel interrogated just yet. This felt like all those times she beat minor criminals half to death with little to no reason.

"It swam up to me with its mouth wide open. It was heading right at me!" she replied.

"You know, most sharks keep their mouths open to help them breath right?" Amy pointed out.

"Yeah, but it was totally going for me!"

"Sharks don't randomly bite people, that's all fear mongering from Jaws." I joined in.

Vicky opened her mouth to reply, but didn't say anything.

"So what happened was: an innocent animal was trying to breathe and you killed it because a movie scared you." Amy said judgmentally. I fought back a smile. It was an unfortunate situation, but we were making it more dramatic than it really had to be. Maybe Vicky would be more sympathetic towards animals than criminals.

"You're mean." Vicky pouted. "What did you want to talk about anyway?"

Amy turned to me. "Okay, so everyone gets let out of the Birdcage because it's the apocalypse and the Protectorate needs help," she stated calmly. Then she burst out, "What the hell was the apocalypse?" Vicky's eyebrows shot up. For her this was completely out of context, no wonder she was astonished.

"Long story short: the source of powers is evil. Or at least completely amoral. Jack Slash tells them to attack the human race and they do."

"You know where powers come from?!" Vicky exclaimed.

"I do. I can't say a lot, because there are some very powerful people trying to keep things quiet, but as they are the source of powers they do have at least a few dozen powers each well above the normal level for parahumans so a fight won't go well."

"So what are we gonna do?" Amy looked at Vicky incredulously.

"What are _we_ gonna do? Nothing. Maybe tell the Protectorate. This is above our paygrade."

I waved them off and continued, "The chief director already knows, don't ask me how. No point in telling the Protectorate. I do know how we beat him last time though, so I can try and make that happen. I'll contact Costa-Brown about that."

Did I want to work on experimental destructive brain surgery? I wasn't Bonesaw, so no, but getting the ability to supercharge parahumans without completely lobotomizing them like Skitter would be useful. It wasn't really critical though, there wasn't a lot of point in making another Khepri other than as a distraction. Fighting Scion wasn't a winning strategy. Unless you counted psychological warfare, which admittedly many people did, so whatever. Point was, using his partner's death against him was a good idea, then finish him off with Foil— Flechette now. I think that non-combat member of The Travelers did something too.

"How did we beat him last time?" Vicky asked eagerly.

"Got him to commit suicide effectively." The sisters blinked at this, dumbstruck.

"That worked?!" Amy was incredulous.

"He was pretty miserable. That was why he was destroying everything anyway, so getting him to sit still and not use his automatic win condition while we killed him was just a matter of shoving his partner's death in his face repeatedly.

"Wow. That's… really fucked up," Vicky whispered.

"Would you do that against Behemoth?" I asked her.

"I guess yeah." She nodded.

"And Golden Morning was far worse than any Endbringer attack. The casualties on Earth Bet alone were in the billions.

"Billions! Plural!" Amy interjected, astonished. "That's starting to sound more like the apocalypse."

I smiled grimly. "It brought a new meaning to the words 'Endbringer truce'. We teamed up with the Endbringers."

"WHAT!" they both shouted.

That got a sharp laugh out of me. "Yeah, the way that happened was pretty complicated. I have some advice for the chief director on that front too. They fought by our side and hardly killed any of us so it was a good tradeoff. Shows how desperate we were." They fell silent and contemplated a scenario so dangerous that there was a truce with the slaughterers of mankind.

"It's getting late," Amy announced after a minute, likely exhausted. I had to agree, the sun had set and it was getting cold enough to be uncomfortable, especially with the water dripping off me. I was also tired and it had been a long, long day. "I need a chance to process all of..."She gestured at me and at generally everything, "this."

I nodded and we went our separate ways.

When I got back to my tree house I collapsed gratefully onto my bed. That had been exhausting. Not just talking with myself and Vicky. The memory of Schnieder's body laying, lifeless, on the ground was still stuck in my head. That entire situation was just mistake after mistake. I was way too aggressive with Victor and then I kept at it with _Hookwolf_. I hadn't started working on the disease until way too late and I had kept putting off actually helping Schnieder. Maybe I shouldn't feel so bad. He was at least willing to help the Empire recruit me, so maybe I could just call him a nazi and be done with it. If I did that then killing him was just stupid and not too immoral.

I stared up at the blue lights hanging from the ceiling. They looked disturbingly similar to an anglerfish's lure. I grew petals the color of morning glories, my favorite flower, around the bioluminescent bulbs to act as a shade. I considered the modification. They did kind of look like upside down flowers, but they didn't quite look right to me. The outsides were too simple and empty. It also cast the ceiling in way too much darkness. I grew smaller flowers with similar glowing bulbs in the center around each of the main lights, almost like replacing the sepals with smaller flowers. I was satisfied with the small beautiful clusters and drifted off to sleep.


End file.
